Book Cover Inspiration Research

In class we are getting ready to design a cover for an anthology of short stories that Junior High School kids wrote.  I scanned award-winning designs from Communication Arts at the Parkland library and took pictures of both regular young adult books and young adult short story anthologies.

Communication Arts Illustration Annual 52 May-June 2011 Scans-I use these for style inspiration.

These illustrations are from books.  The left group is from Front Forty Profiles Series No. 1 Mark McGinnis, an art book. I enjoyed the extreme contrast with the picture of the birds between the black and blue.  The illustrations on the right are from Bugs by the Numbers by Sharon Werner and Sarah Forss. The type treatment with 2500 is an inspiration to me, it is comprised entirely of small bugs yet it is very readable.

This is from page 80 and 81.  The left side illustrates a poster for Girl Scouts to show a really strong and empowered girl.  I want to glean some ideas from this type treatment.  On the right is a set of illustrations for American Songbook, "Skylark," "Mr. Bojangles" and "Come Rain or Come Shine."

This illustration is cover art for "Rocky passages, Broken Promises," which is about Malibu-based drug and alcohol rehab centers, the owners and their stories.  I have been paying attention to the new surrealism that is out there in design and I often wonder how I can incorporate it into my own work.

These illustrations are from a booklet by Justin Reneria about the names of animals.  I enjoy the style of these drawings.


Jane Addams Book Cover Inspiration Research-I took pictures of these book covers at Jane Addams in Champaign to get an idea of what book covers for young adult literature (both short story anthologies and regular fiction) look like these days.  I apologize for the poor quality of the photographs...I didn't want to say too long at Jane Addams taking pictures and get kicked out.

 

I love the texture in this book, although the type, while it fits, is definitely subordinate to the imagery.

 This book caught my eye because it is colorful and the type treatment is well done.

This book is very much the modern design for typical epic tales young adults are into these days.  The type is also very nicely done and adds to it.  However, as you can see with this research it was difficult to find book covers that use type AS the design rather than just a supplement to the design.  I have more thinking to do!