OUGD603 Brief 03: Evaluation

Evaluation:
I wanted to take part in this competition again as last year I really enjoyed coming up with different ideas. However, this year I seemed to struggle with the visuals more so than I did last year. I really enjoy researching and trying to work out what would be the most engaging concept but it seemed more difficult than last year. I don't know whether it was to do with the book that I had chosen or whether I was distracted at the time. The ideas that I had sketched out didn't seem engaging enough or much different from what had already been done. 

As the deadline was approaching and I still hadn't got a solid design idea I decided to start roughly sketching out some of the characters within the book. This change of direction allowed me to come up with a different design for the cover. What I have learnt from this project is that I need to start sketching out sooner and trying out different variations of a design. Planning out my time better and getting stuck into the design sooner will help me to produce more varied outcomes. Overall, I am happy with the final design but it could possibly have been worked on a bit more to refine the sketches and the placement of the pattern. 

OUGD603 Brief 03: Final Submission

Final Submission:

Based on the feedback I had received from my peers I decided to go with the white background design as I felt that it gave off a classic look and worked well with the sketches. The colour contrast also makes the book stand out whereas the black cover could possibly get lost on the shelf.

 Front Cover:

Front, back and spine:

Submission confirmation:

OUGD603 Brief 03: Further Development & Feedback

Development:
As I was struggling for ideas I decided to start sketching again this time focusing on some of the animals within the story.

Further sketches:

Edited sketches:

I took the sketches I had done into illustrator where I imaged traced to provide a scaleable vector copy. I also added in and took away lines where appropriate that that they were all about the same shade.

I created a pattern out of the sketches which was added to a swatch so it could easily be applied to a shape.

Typography:

Edo SZ

I wanted to use a typeface for the cover that reflected a paintbrush to reference when the pigs paint the commandments on the barn wall.

Feedback:
They liked the expressive type and felt that it was a good link (the seven commandments painted on the barn wall). The only criticism was that it could be potentially too digital and could look better if I actually did it myself with paint - this is something to consider.

Serifa Std 55 Roman

I liked the hard slab serifs which help the words to become hard and bold, they also reflect a sort of typewriter style which is easy to read.

Feedback:
The back copy text was originally at 12pt but when I showed my design to my peers they said that it needed to be at a smaller scale such as 10pt as this is more appropriate for a book. I made the change and it improved the overall appearance and made the type seem more manageable. 

White background:

Black background:

Pupils have been added due to feedback.

Feedback:
Overall I had really positive feedback for the design, they liked the classic style illustrations turned into a pattern, contrasted against the stark type, providing an engaging visual. The type helps to add that sense of foreboding which is rooted within the story.  I made the changes as suggested with the type size as it is more appropriate for a book cover. It was also suggested to try the design out with a black background, this made the illustrations look like they have zombie eyes. It was suggested to add in black pupils onto all of the animals, this helped to improve the overall look, as they seem less demonic. Generally the white background was preferred as it stands out, having a more classical design. The black provides a more intense contrast but the red copy text seems to get a little lost in the black so would need further work.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Development

Development:
Taking my first design idea, I have mocked up a pig hoof print in illustrator and applied an effect to make it look rougher round the edges.

I have also downloaded a free typeface which reflects the constructivist style used by Soviet Russia.

Molot:

This typeface consists of bold letterforms with strong edges - consistent in shape and size making it more legible then some.

I want to play around with placement and scale but initially I have placed it the same as in my sketch.

I started to think about what I could do with the back cover to make it different from the front - I think that putting a human footprint would be a nice contrast and help to highlight the theme within the book.

I tested out the design applying the copy and the footprint. I quickly mocked up a layout only using two colours just to see what effect it has and give me an idea of what it looks like.

I think that this design still needs a lot of work, potentially playing around with scale. I don't know if the design works as it looks to vectored - it needs to have a more printed / rough edge. The type also doesn't really work for the blurb of the text the bold letterforms make it quite hard to read.

Feedback:

Having some brief feedback it was suggested to change the colours and switch them around having a red print with black text and potentially working with the scale of the title.

I tried to play around with the different design but I still don't think that it is right. The colours were to reflect the soviet union flag. I still think the design is lacking something - I think that going back to sketching some ideas might help me to come up with a more concrete idea.

I decided to take away the colour and just work in black and white for the time being - I think this is an improvement but it still isn't working as well as I want it to.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Initial Ideas (Sketches)

Initial Ideas (Sketches):

I decided to do some sketches of my initial ideas.

The pigs are the most dominant characters within the book and I thought about how they are effectively walking all over the other animals. I thought about a pigs hoof and the impression that would make - having it large scale will provide a strong, striking visual.

Within this design I wanted the pigs legs to be seen front to back cover, this would hopefully wrap around the book quite nicely. Type would need to be large and bold to attract attention in a dramatic way.

This idea represents the changing name of the farm - a literal concept, could potentially be a little too obvious / cliche.

Another concept which is more obvious, making use of the windmill which is a strong symbol within the book. The text in line with the arm of the windmill.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Five graphic design ideas from the Russian Revolution by Steven Heller

Animal Farm represents the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the Soviet Union. Looking at graphic styles could help to inform the overall design.

Five graphic design ideas from the Russian Revolution by Steven Heller:

(https://www.royalacademy.org.uk/article/five-things-graphic-designers-owe-to-russia)

Minimalist Colour

'The Modern colour palette was minimal, primary and bold. Red was the primary colour – the colour of the proletariat, associated with working class revolutionary forces since the French Revolution of 1789. When paired with black, it creates a startling visual combination (see El Lissitzky’s Red Wedge, below). In addition to that pairing, yellow, blue and green were also frequently used alone or in combination. Colour ink was at a premium, so the use of just one or two colours was common; full or four-colour reproduction was expensive, and other stocks of colour were limited.'

This will be something to take into consideration when working out what colours to use, I think that I should try and stick with one or two colours. Red is also an important colour.

Abstraction and Geometry

'Among the progressive art and design groups were the radically abstract Suprematists, founded in 1915 by Kazimir Malevich. They introduced a formalist combination of pure geometry – the reduction of content to symbolic shapes and forms, along with a limited palette (see below). That unprecedented combination was the foundation upon which Constructivism – aiming to make art that reflected a modern, industrial society – and other European modernisms evolved. Anti-antiquarian works that proffered graphic revolution were the paradigms for waves of similar aesthetics in Germany, Holland, England, Eastern Europe and elsewhere. Many of these were, in turn, embraced by commercial designers and promoted by printing and typography journals in the capitalist world as codes for machine-age modernity.'

"Agitprop"

'All kinds of artistic viewpoints, from Cubism to Realism, became accepted expressive tools in the years that followed. But it was the unprecedented symbolic abstraction of Malevich and his contemporaries that became the recognised “revolutionary” art genre and the foundation of “agitation art”, or agitprop. In 1919, the Society of Young Artists was set up to produce posters and banners for social elevation and illumination, and a year later the Institute of Artistic Culture was founded in Moscow to train artists to produce design for proletarian use.'

Constructivist Typography

'Soviet graphic designers saw their work as a challenge to the old typographic order, and before Socialist Realism came to dominate the visual landscape (see below), avant garde typography was a defining element of the new Soviet aesthetic. Modern Constructivist typography was a melding of disparate typefaces in varying sizes. Typefaces were readable, but they were not composed on a page in the tradition manner of one or two typefaces in logical columns; instead there were multiple sizes and shapes within the same word or sentence.'

OUGD603 Brief 03: Time Plan

Time Plan:

I have done a revised time plan where I would ideally like to complete the brief within the next 5 days, which should be doable. If I work hard and stick to this plan I should be able to get it done within the time constraints.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Character Map

Character Map:

This visual map is useful in understanding the roles of the main characters.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Book Overview

Book Overview:

(https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/animal-farm/animal-farm-at-a-glance)

'Animal Farm is George Orwell's satire on equality, where all barnyard animals live free from their human masters' tyranny. Inspired to rebel by Major, an old boar, animals on Mr. Jones' Manor Farm embrace Animalism and stage a revolution to achieve an idealistic state of justice and progress. A power-hungry pig, Napoleon, becomes a totalitarian dictator who leads the Animal Farm into "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others" oppression.'

Type of Work: Novel

First Published: August 17, 1945

Genres: Political satire; allegory

Setting: Mr Jones', Old Manor Farm

Main Characters: 
- Old Major
- Snowball
- Napoleon
- Squealar
- Boxer
- Mollie 
- Benjamin
- Moses
- Jones
- Frederick
- Pilkington

Major Thematic Topics:
- Animalism
- Mob rule
- Virtue
- Religion as a drug
- Distortion of reality 
- Death
- False allegiance
- Political corruption

Motifs:
- Rebellion
- Power
- Communism

Major Symbols
- Cold War
- The barn
- The windmill

The 3 most important aspects:

1. Animal Farm is an allegory, which is a story in which concrete and specific characters and situations stand for other characters and situations so as to make a point about them. The main action of Animal Farm stands for the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the early years of the Soviet Union. Animalism is really communism. Manor Farm is allegorical of Russia, and the farmer Mr. Jones is the Russian Czar. Old Major stands for either Karl Marx or Vladimir Lenin, and the pig named Snowball represents the intellectual revolutionary Leon Trotsky. Napoleon stands for Stalin, while the dogs are his secret police. The horse Boxer stands in for the proletariat, or working class.

2. The setting of Animal Farm is a dystopia, which is an imagined world that is far worse than our own, as opposed to a utopia, which is an ideal place or state. Other dystopian novels include Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and Orwell's own 1984.

3. The most famous line from the book is "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others." This line is emblematic of the changes that George Orwell believed followed the 1917 Communist Revolution in Russia. Rather than eliminating the capitalist class system it was intended to overthrow, the revolution merely replaced it with another hierarchy. The line is also typical of Orwell's belief that those in power usually manipulate language to their own benefit.

Notes:

All the symbols of Jones' reign — nose-rings, dog-chains, knives — are tossed into a celebratory bonfire.

Painted in "great white letters" on the side of the barn.

To help the animals understand the general precepts of Animalism, Snowball reduces the Seven Commandments to a single slogan: "Four legs good, two legs bad." 

Cows' milk and windfallen apples are mixed every day into the pigs' mash.

Seizure of the new pups that he will raise to be the vicious guard dogs 

News of the rebellion spreads to other farms (by way of pigeons released by Snowball and Napoleon)

The creation of military decorations, the naming of the battle, and the decision to fire Jones' gun twice a year all suggest the animals' love of ceremony and the slow but sure transformation of Animal Farm into a place governed by martial law more than the Seven Commandments of Animalism.

All Benjamin believes is what he knows for sure, the sum total of which is that, "Windmill or no windmill, life will go on as it always had gone on — that is, badly." 

Combination of relentless propaganda and threats of violence comprise Napoleon's philosophy of leadership

The pigs move into the farmhouse and begin sleeping in beds, which Squealer excuses on the grounds that the pigs need their rest after the daily strain of running the farm.

Grammatical revision of commandments

Napoleon when he is seen is now heralded by a black cockerel

Pigs walking on two legs

The flag of Animal Farm consists of a green field with a hoof and a horn.


Everything has come full circle 

OUGD603 Brief 03: Animal Farm Covers

Animal Farm Covers:

Looking at previous cover designs there are some elements which seem to be consistently used.

Colour:
- Red
- Beige / white
- Black
- Pink
- Grey

Imagery:
- Pigs (main focus)
- Other farm animals
- Windmill
- Single law: "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others."

Type:
- Bold
- Large scale
- Some stylised

Using this information I want to come up with a design which hasn't been done before but still needs to have some sort of familiarity as it's a classic book.

OUGD603 Brief 03: Book Summary

Book Summary:
To understand the book better reading the plot summary will give me an overview of what happens within the book. From this I will be able to pick out certain themes and I will be able to use this to base my ideas from.

- Animals assemble in a barn to hear Old Major (a pig), describe a dream he had about a world where animals lived free.

- Old Major dies

- The animals are inspired by his philosophy of Animalism - plot a rebellion against Jones (farmer).

- Two pigs, Snowball and Napoleon prove important figures and planners.

- Jones forgets to feed the animals - revolution - Jones and his men are chased off the farm.

- 7 Commandments of Animalism are painted on the barn wall.

- Manor Farm renamed Animal Farm.

- Initial success - animals complete the harvest and meet every Sunday to debate farm policy.

- The pigs become supervisors because of their intelligence.

- Napoleon proves to be a power-hungry leader - steals the cow's milk and a number of apples to feed him and the other pigs.

- Squealer (pig) can persuade the other animals that the pigs are always moral and correct in their decisions. 

- Jones and his men return and attempt to retake the farm.

- Snowballs tactics win the battle - The Battle of the Cowshed.

- Mollie a vain horse concerned only with ribbons and sugar is lured off the farm by another human.

- Snowball draws plans for a windmill - electricity - give the animals more leisure time.

- Napoleon opposes plans on the grounds that it will allow for less time producing food.

- On the Sunday that the pigs offer the windmill to the animals for a vote, Napoleon summons a pack of ferocious dogs, who chase Snowball off the farm forever.

- Napoleon announces that there will be no more debates, also saying the windmill will be built and that it was his idea.

- Next year is spent building the windmill.

- Boxer an incredibly strong horse proves to be the most valuable.

- Jones forsakes the farm and moves to another part of the county.

- Napoleon uses Snowball as a scapegoat who he blames all of the animals hardships on.

- Napoleon hires a solicitor and beings trading with neighbouring farms.

- A storm topples the windmill - Napoleon blames Snowball and orders the animals to rebuild it.

- Napoleons lust for power increases - totalitarian dictator - forcing 'confessions' from innocent animals and having them killed by the dogs in front of the entire farm.

- All the pigs move into Jones' house and sleep in the beds (Squealer excuses with his brand of twisted logic).

- The animals receive less and less food, while the pigs grow fatter.

- The windmill is complete in August.

- Napoleon sells a pile of timber to Jones

- Frederick a neighbouring farmer pays for it with forged bank notes.

- Frederick and his men attack the farm and explode the windmill but are eventually defeated. 

- More commandments are broken by the pigs - the language is revised.

- Boxer offers strength to build the new windmill - he collapses - Napoleon sells him to a knacker (glue-boiler).

- Squealer tells the animals that Boxer was taken to the vet and died a peaceful death in hospital - the animals believe this.

- Years pass, Animal Farm expands it's boundaries - buying more land.

- Life for all the animals (except the pigs) is harsh.

- The pigs begin walking on their hind legs and take many other qualities of their former human oppressors.

- 7 Commandments reduced to a single law: "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others."

- Pilkington shares a drink with the pigs in Jones' house.

- Napoleon changed the name of the farm back to Manor Farm and quarrels with Pilkington during a card game, where they both try to play the ace of spades.

- The other animals watch the scene from outside the window, they cannot tell the pigs from the humans.

Learning about the book has allowed me to pick out some important attributes which could be developed into a visual idea:
- Pigs
- Barn (plot)
- Philosophy of Animalism
- 7 Commandments
- Rename of farm
- Windmill
- Dictator (totalitarian)
- Pigs grow fatter
- Pigs acting like humans - sleeping in beds and walking on hind legs.
- Single law: "All Animals Are Equal / But Some Are More Equal Than Others."

OUGD603 Brief 03: Penguin Random House Student Design Award 2018

Penguin Random House Student Design Award 2018:

Adult Fiction Cover Award

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Orwell's chilling 'fairy story', is a timeless and devastating satire of idealism betrayed by power and corruption.

When the downtrodden animals of Manor Farm overthrow their master Mr Jones and take over the farm themselves, they imagine it is the beginning of a life of freedom and equality. But gradually a cunning, ruthless élite among them, masterminded by the pigs Napoleon and Snowball, starts to take control. Soon the other animals discover that they are not all as equal as they thought, and find themselves hopelessly ensnared as one form of tyranny is replaced with another.

The Brief:

A cover design which will reflect the book’s status as one of the great modern political allegories of our time, as relevant today as it was when it was first published over 50 years ago. It is rich with ideas, characters, allegory, political and moral philosophy – read it and decide how best to showcase the content of this remarkable novel through the cover design and bring it to a new generation of readers.

The cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 8 mm, incorporating the Penguin branding and all additional elements such as the barcode. Refer to the Submissions Details page for full details of the spec and how to submit.

What the judges are looking for...

They are looking for a striking cover design that is well executed, has an imaginative concept and clearly places the book for its market. While all elements of the jacket need to work together as a cohesive whole, remember that the front cover must be effective on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting. It also needs to be able to work on screen for digital retailers such as Amazon.

The winning design will need to:
- Have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief
- Be competently executed with strong use of typography
- Appeal to a contemporary readership
- Show a good understanding of the marketplace
- Have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against

Copyright must be cleared for all images used in your cover design and you must include a credit line on the back cover of your design for any third party images used. For example: ‘Cover photograph by Joe Bloggs’.

The Prizes:

1st Prize - The winner of each category will be invited to spend four weeks in the Penguin Random House Design Studios on a work placement*, working on live briefs. The work placement will be paid at the current London Living Wage rate (subject to any applicable taxation) and the winner will also receive a cash prize of £1,000.

2nd Prize - The winner of the 2nd Prize will receive a £500 cash prize.

3rd Prize - The winner of the 3rd Prize will receive a £250 cash prize.

All the shortlisted entrants will be invited to an award ceremony where the winners will be announced, and at which an exhibition of all the shortlisted designs will be on display.

The Judges:
- John Hamilton – Art Director, Penguin General
- Joanna Prior – Managing Director, Penguin General Books
- Jim Stoddart – Art Director, Penguin Press

Submission Details
Entries must be supplied in the following format:
- PDF
- 300dpi
- CMYK
- 5mm bleed
- Crop marks to be included
- Ideally colour managed to ISO Coated 39 or ISO Uncoated 29 (optional)

- Maximum file size 5 MB

Include the front cover only on the first page of your PDF and a full cover spread (front, spine and back cover) on the second page of your PDF.

Use the design template and cover copy supplied for each category brief.

Important Dates:
Closing date for entries – Tuesday 6 March 2018, 12:00 noon (GMT)

Shortlist announcement – Wednesday 25 April 2018

Closing date for shortlisted student’s final submissions – Thursday 10 May 2018, 12:00 noon (GMT)


Winners announced – Wednesday 20 June 2018