To celebrate what would have been the 125th birthday of Agatha Christie, the Guardian are hosting a competition to design a book cover for your favourite Christie novel.
The Book I picked was 'By the pricking of my thumbs'. Slightly different to may of Christies classic novels, this book focuses a lot more on the paranormal with a plot full of witches and other mysterious phenomenons.
The main objects I thought would be visually interesting to draw upon from the plot were:
- A painting of an old ginger bread looking house that the main characters used to figure out the mystery.
- A Fireplace where a chid was said to be buried behind.
- A letter left behind from a deceased aunt
- And a doll full of diamonds.
At first I played around with the idea of using a fireplace and a picture frame on the front cover, experimenting with different ways of perhaps merging the two objects together and looking at different compositions I could use to put them on a book cover. However after trying a few various possibilities I decided it looked too plain and wasn't eyecatching enough for a book cover design.
This is when I started experimenting with the idea of a colourful repeat pattern, combining all the key items from the book in an abstract and playful way.
The pattern creates the impression of falling which creates a sense of urgency and acts as a dynamic and interesting focal point for the viewer. I also thought this design would be versatile and pliable on the use of other books from the series following the same concept.
The way the shapes in the pattern are distorted by the edge of the book generates a sense of mystery and abiguity, the same characteristics Christies work is famous for. It also encourages a sense of a reward for the reader every time they find a new object in the story that relates to the pattern on the front of the book.
The style and colour scheme was inspired by a piece of Rin Ohara's work called 'Halloween Pattern', because it immediately caught my eye through the use of bright colours and simple vector drawings.
However I muted the colours because I thought they were too cheery and playful for a murder mystery novel and the slightly murkier colours I chose generated a more ominous atmosphere.
The problem that arose with using a busy pattern rather than a few key images/shapes/ illustrations was incorporating a font while keeping the design uncluttered and legible.
I decided to base my design on the old classic Penguin book covers and found this rework by Illustrator M.S Corely of the Harry Potter Series (if it were done in the style of penguin) which inspired me.
Corey uses a simple colour palette of 3 colours: cream, black and 1 accent colour. The accent colour establishes a point of interest while simultaneously tying the banner containing the title and author of the book in with the rest of the design. I decided to use this 'banner' in my work to achieve the same objective, making it the same colour as one of the elements in the pattern I'd created, establishing a balanced composition overall.
Here's a link to the submission page and a screenshot showing my design alongside the work of my other classmates and the public.
Overall I believe my end design was effective and could easily be adapted for the covers of other novels by Agatha Christie and beyond.
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