Due to the quick turn around nature of this brief, I decided to focus on understanding the general argument and intentions of the book through reading critic reviews and focussing on important parts of the text, rather than attempting to read through the whole thing in a short space of time. Reading reviews has been particularly useful as it has helped with understanding the book from a subjective level, giving me an inclination as to how other readers have interpreted Jones' ideas.
In order to help the design of my cover to excel I have also spent some time reviewing past Penguin covers through reading, 'Penguin By Design', a documentation of the covers produced between 1935 and 2005. Seeing the history and evolution of the publishing company has really helped me to gauge what they may be looking for. Through undertaking this research I have found a few cover designs that have particularly inspired my ideas for this brief:
(Figure 1)
(Figure 2)
(Figure 3)
(Figure 4)
(Figure 5)
(Figure 6)
(Figure 7)
Figure 7 displays a layout and use of space that I think works really well. When viewing both sides together it does not hold the same effect, however, through viewing the front cover by itself, there is an initial element of illusiveness. This being due to the cigarette not making itself instantly apparent. And so the reader is implied to follow the image around to the back side. I like this quality and think it's important to have a flow between the separate areas of the cover as it helps to engage the reader with the content.
The use of shape and graphic style in figure 1 is something I'd like to attribute to my own work for this project. There's a sense of order and control that's communicated through the arrangement and symmetry of the shapes. This would work well with the nature of the book I'm designing for.
Figure 3 also shows the diverse potential for the design of the spine. Although all displayed in this image are pattern based, it still helps to expose how much visual information could be included into this area of the cover. It's important to remember that this is a vital area of the book as at some point that will be the only area on show to consumers and so it needs to present a compact yet visually appealing design that will encourage someone to take it off of the shelf. Including the title of the book (+ name of author) clearly is also important.
Incorporating the aesthetics of the older penguin cover designs could work well to benefit and articulate the message of this book quite well, as The Establishment itself is, at least in Owen Jones' perspective (and my own), a very outdated institution which needs to be reformed. Therefor including a similar sense of style to this cover as the older generations of penguin covers may help to communicate this aspect. Not to say that the older generation of penguin covers in anyway needed to be reformed! They're beautiful.
