above covers by: Rudolph de Harak
For our next assignment you will be designing three book covers in a series. Here is a short blurb about serial book design taken from The History of Graphic Design by Philip Meggs:
"The concept of serial painting--a series or sequence of independant works unified by common elements or an underlying structure--was applied to graphic design by [Alexander] Rodchenko. In 1924 his series of ten covers for the Jim Dollar..."Miss Mend" books used a standard geometric format printed in black and a second color. The title, number, second color, and photomontage change with each edition, conveying the uniqueness of each book. The standardized elements bring consistency and economy to the whole series."
above covers by Alexander Rodchenko
Before I give you all of the specific details of the assignment, I want you to choose and research your group of three books from the list that I have assembled below. Pick one group of three. You will make three bookcovers with each cover containing 75% text and 25% image. The three covers need to relate in one or more of the following ways: color, type, grid structure, similar illustration style or concept. I will be giving you logos for Penguin Classics
and you will be expected to incorporate those into your covers.
But don't worry about that yet.
Worry about what books you are going to choose:
PICK ONE FROM THE FOLLOWING SETS:
HEROES:
David Copperfield: Charles Dickens
The Fight: Norman Mailer
No Easy Walk to Freedom: Nelson Mandela
CRAZIES:
One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest: Ken Kesey
Wide Sargasso Sea: Jean Rhys
Notes From the Underground: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
SEX:
A Spy in the House of Love: Anaïs Nin
Lady Chatterley's Lover: D.H. Lawrence
Venus in Furs: Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
VILLAINS:
Heart of Darkness: Joseph Conrad
Diamonds Are Forever: Ian Fleming
The Brothers Karamazov: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
LOVERS:
Don Juan: Lord Byron
Wuthering Heights: Emily Bronte
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: Tennessee WIlliams
TEARJERKERS:
Of Mice and Men: John Steinbeck
Notre-Dame De Paris: Victor Hugo
Jude The Obscure: Thomas Hardy
SPINE TINGLERS:
The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson
Frankenstein: Mary Shelley
Dracula: Bram Stoker
MINXES:
Lolita: Vladimir Nabokov
Baby Doll: Tennessee WIlliams
Breakfast at Tiffany's: Truman Capote
JOURNEYS
On the Road: Jack Kerouac
The Odyssey: Homer
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck
DECADENCE:
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Picture of Dorian Gray: Oscar Wilde
Against Nature: J.K. Huysmans
REBELS:
The Communist Manifesto: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
The Autobiography of Malcom X: Malcom X
Animal Farm: George Orwell
SCI-FI:
The Time Machine: H.G. Wells
The Man In The High Castle: Philip K. Dick
We: Yevgeny Zamyatin
VIOLENCE:
A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess
Hell's Angels: Hunter S. Thompson
In Cold Blood: Truman Capote
DRUGS:
Junky: William S. Burroughs
Confessions of An English Opium Eater: Thomas De Quincey
The Subterraneans: Jack Kerouac
SUBVERSION:
1984: George Orwell
The Monkey Wrench Gang: Edward Abbey
Bound for Glory: Woody Guthrie
CRIME:
The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler
A Study in Scarlet: Arthur Conan Doyle
The Thirty-Nine Steps: John Buchan
ADULTERY:
Les Liaisons Dangereuses: Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
The Scarlett Letter: Nathaniel Hawthorne
Anna Karenina: Leo Tolstoy
DEBAUCHERY:
I, Claudius: Robert Graves
Guys and Dolls: Damon Runyon
Hangover Square: Patrick Hamilton
ACTION:
Treasure Island: Robert Louis Stevenson
The Iliad: Homer
From Russia With Love: Ian Fleming
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