Studio Brief 3 - Judge a Book by its Cover... INITIAL IDEAS

IDEA GENERATION

The ability of illustration to create an impression about an idea or theme suits the discipline perfectly to book covers. With studio brief 3 asking us to create a new cover for an existing book, I began by brainstorming the impression I got from the existing cover, and the themes I could draw from the introduction. Working with Richard Sennett's TOGETHER, I considered ideas of unity, compromise and balance, diversity and tradition, thinking about the elements that inform our ability to cooperate.

Exploring these themes, I drafted motifs and potential covers in my sketchbook. The idea of diversity and unity seemed to lend it self to imagery of different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, while the idea of compromise suggested a balance motif to me. Working through these ideas in my sketchbook I have considered the image as a repeat pattern, as a picture spanning the whole jacket, and as a single image occupying just the front page. In the production of my roughs I will get a better sense of media and composition but at this stage I feel my initial ideas capture a multitude of interpretations and have potential for development into different compositions depending on how I chose to use the book jacket.