Different book ideas

Biggest book in the world «The Codex Gigas»




Smallest bible in the world.




The cookbook you have to bake to be able to read any text.




Last biography book of a swiss graphic designer Pierr Mendel, with date of his death,  he wrote by himself. And died after.




Pop-up book with a light.



Gun-book.




Book, that glows in the dark.




...

Photographic cover

Form and Function

A simple definition

In basic terms the design or appearance of an object or artistic representation known as the ‘form’ should portray or represent the proposed ‘function’ in some way.

Think of sandwich packets they are shaped the same way that sandwiches are cut into triangles and have designs on them representing health nutrition in some way.

Think of other products that represent their function in their form.

By contrast, when a designer sets out to create a new design, they almost always have a fixed starting point, whether through the portrayal of a message, an image, an idea or an action. They are trying to communicate through their designs.

The designer’s job isn’t to invent something new, but to communicate something that already exists, for a purpose.

That purpose is almost always to motivate the audience to do something: buy a product, use a service, visit a location, learn certain information. The most successful designs are those that most effectively communicate their message and motivate their consumers to carry out a task.

Q: Explain how form relates to function. (stick this information in your sketch book with 3 examples)

Good Art Is Interpreted. Good Design Is Understood.

The fundamental purpose of design is to communicate a message and motivate the viewer to do something.

If your design communicates a message other than the one you intended, and your viewer goes and does something based on that other message, then it has not met its requirement. With a good piece of design, the designer’s exact message is understood by the viewer.

Good Art Is a Taste. Good Design Is an Opinion.

A good piece of design can still be successful without being to your taste. If it accomplishes its objective of being understood and motivates people to do something, then whether it’s good or not is a matter of opinion.

Good Art Is a Talent. Good Design Is a Skill.

When designing products it’s important to remember the 3 Rs: Reduce, Recycle and Reuse.

The 3 Rs provide guidance on how to minimise the damage a product does to the environment.

Reduce

Use the least amount of materials and energy when making a product.

Recycle

Use recycled materials and/or materials that can be recycled after use (e.g. untreated papers,

glass).

Recycled materials are those which can be used again in new products. This usually involves

separating the materials into different types and then cleaning and re-preparing them.

Reuse

Use products and components (e.g. containers, electronics, fastenings) that have already been used and/or can be used again in different products.

Disadvantages

While these approaches help save the environment, the 3 Rs can bring disadvantages in terms of:

● increased costs of materials.

● manufacturing and recycling processes.

● products that may not perform as well as required.

However, many of the most successful designs manage to combine environmentally friendly issues with low-cost, quality production.

Contracts in design services

Here are example of a agreement form for design services.
http://www.aiga.org/uploadedFiles/46874510-Standard-Form-of-Agreement-for-Design-Services.pdf

Book cover designs

Blind drawing book cover based on Penguin layout design.

Illustration book cover

Pattern based cover

Illustration based cover

Illustration based

Vintage collage based one

Contraversial cover design showing hanged girl

Eastern Aisia design, inspired by chineese book covers. I used minimalistic typograpy and print-styled illustration.

    Updated Eastern Aisia cover.

Contraversial cover design, that shows two woman kissing.



Ethics in Book Cover design

What I think about these book covers

The woman with her organs out is swemming in the pool, like nothing happened.

Not very pleasant view, some people may want to vomit after seeing it. I am not sure about target audience of this book, but perharps it is not very wide.

This cover shows us a boy sitting on Beethovens laps and playing piano. Everything looks fine, but look at the Beethovens face. It has quite strange expression. He looks pleased, but not about the boys playing skills. About something else. And awkwardly holding boys shoulder he looks more like maniac or pedophile, rather than good music teacher, which pretty much does not makes me want to buy this book. I think, this is not even controversity, just an illustrator's fail.

This one is very homophobic cover. It harasses the group ofhomosexual people, which I think is bad thing to do, because everyone has right to be who they want. Me personaly would never design something like that.

Book Covers

The functions of a book cover is to protect the content inside, to draw attention and to indicate the content of the book. This is why we should pay special attention to cover design.

There is some compilation of the Penguin book cover designs and it changes through the time

Chineese Designs

I took a look at Chineese bok cover designs, as it is related to one of our themes "Far Eastern design".

The common thing about them all, is that they are very simple,  minimalistic and natutal. The colors mostly are pastel and solid, shapes are very clear, and phoitography is not commonly used. Mostly illustration or prints.

Proposal

Beautifuly Unhinged

Our first project this year is to design many book cover designs for the book "Beautifuly Unhinged" by Annalise Cornelius.  FOr this project I will research different book covers and books published by Penguin to get some idea and inspiration.

The keywords for the book are arachnophobia, mental illness, lesbians, spiritualism etc. The various techniques I’ll use will be illustration, photography, patterns and illustration.

Timeline:

Week
1	Write project proposal Moodboards Research artist Photograph abstract
2	Typography book covers
3	Graphic Illustration & print book covers
4	Interim Review & Mixed Media
5	Collage Photomontage book covers
6

Ecological friendly books

I think, the best way to save trees and keep earth green is to use eReaders. Some of them dont use much electricity, they can be charged once in a few months, they can keep up to few thousand books, and they dont impact nature as much, as paper books does.