The Wind in the Willows 2

So lately I have been slacking in my posts but not necessarily in my work! I've decided to concentrate my book design on The Wind in the Willows. As I believe my concept for the design seemed stronger and more refine than the idea of representing The Big Sleep with Orchids. It looked to me like everyone else had this same idea in our classroom so by steering away from this I wanted my work to stand out and surprise people. 

The Idea for my book cover is to have flowers and insects such as butterflies and bees flow from the exhaust pipe of Mr.Toad's car. This is to represent the idealistic view people hold over the country of being pure and natural, the colourful clusters of flowers also work to create that spring setting the book opens in. By layering the flowers and insects in a claustrophobic way, I believe it will appeal to a younger audience as they intrigue and sense of fun and curiosity will attract them to the book and allow their eyes to explore the cover by following the wrap around image. Below are some developmental variations of my book cover which experiment with the different backgrounds.

Above - "The net curtains" the name given to the a popular choice amongst my peers and my tutor, that tradition English feel I was hoping to create from the inspiration of Charlecote Park clearly comes across in the fabric background as mentioned in class. I feel the subtle grey hues work well as a contrast against the vibrant flowers and the texture of the fabric will be an interesting element for the young audience to interact with. 

Above - "Brown Paper" the second favourite of the variations was the creased brown paper background. In a one to one talk with Simon he found my Sellotape and masking tape prints fascinating  from the accidental textures and interesting layered effect, he thought they were very playful and of that victorian era of flower pressing (this variation is shown below). This feedback session and playful factor in the design gave me the idea to try different textured backgrounds.

I love how the defined crease intersects with the spine to create an interesting composition. 

Below - I was so inspired by the paper cutting artists I featured in a Sunday Run Down post I played with the idea of layering papers with cutout areas to make up the image and text. Also in the the post link above is the artist Ben Giles who influenced the idea of flowers cascading across the page. 

A few alterations are needed before printing and another one to one talk with my tutors but I feel my finalised design is near enough there. I hope to submit a design to penguin in the hopes of feedback from them also and the chance of winning of course!  

NAP x