steiler-book



1. //The Fault in Our Stars// cover is great in terms of the elements and principles of art. I immediately thought of TFIOS (//The Fault in Our Stars//) book cover when we were given the next assignment because of the bright blue color. The design itself is pretty basic, but the use of shape and space are what make it appealing and give the cover a sense of unity. The cloud shapes are interesting and they're simply 2D. Where there would've been "white" (blue) space above the black cloud is a review of the book written in diagonal text and then below the white cloud is a little information about the author and his reward for another one of his books, //Looking For Alaska//. //every day// by David Leviathan is another perplexing book cover design. Unlike the bold colors of TFIOS cover, //every day// is sepia, but it's the images that draw my attention. There is a sepia line at about the 1/3 mark that connects in the middle with a horizontal line under the author's name, which adds emphasis to the text and the falling people adds movement to the design. Lastly, //To Kill A Mockingbird// (TKAM) was the most recent book I read and because it is so popular and won a Pulitzer Prize there are a dozen different book cover designs because the book has been re-released multiple times so I scrolled through all the different designs and found a 2D layout (pictured above) and I really liked the artist aspect of it. Once again, unlike TFIOS, the TKAM cover doesn't use bold colors, but that actually has to do with the book itself and the plot so the fact that they kept to the color scheme and didn't add color even after all these years I appreciate after having read the book and seen the black and white movie. Anyways, the tree branches on the front and leaves on the back and the fence add texture and there is balance between the front and back covers with Jem (main character) on the back and Scout (other main character) on the front.

2. The typography on TFIOS cover is equally as eye-catching as the bright blue color. The spine of the book is bold blue with big, black type. I've always liked the typography used on the cover because it's fitting to the story. It's also all capitalized, which draws the attention of anyone who sees the cover among the books on a book shelf. The illustration is simple, but connects to the plot. On the other hand, the lettering on the cover of //every day// isn't capitalized "correctly". The title and author's name are not capitalized, which is a choice the publisher thought would be beneficial and the illustration I briefly talked about in number one, but I think it's mysterious and it made me want to read it my sophomore year. I didn't even read the blurb on the back of any of the choice books, I just picked //every day// because it looked the most interesting. Lastly, the typography of TKAM is all different depending upon what cover design you see, but the specific one I chose the typography ties into the tree branches and the font itself is kind of eerie looking, which is fitting to the plot of the book.

3. TFIOS grabs the attention of the customers because among the other books on the shelf with black or brown spines, the spine of the TFIOS cover is bold blue. every day on the other hand may not grab the attention of customers, because of the lack of bold color, but there is a falling man on the spine of the book, which would capture my attention as a customer. As for TKAm I think that this book is well known enough that the design of the book itself doesn't grab a customer's attention, I think the mojo around the book is enough to have any person interested in reading give it a read.

__Works Cited__ Image of TFIOS book cover from... fangirlish.com Image of every day book cover from... goodreads.com Image of TKAM book cover from... rockwell-center.org