We have all seen the original design of this book. Most of the class agreed it was quite odd for a design book to be designed so badly. For my assignment i decided to challenge myself to come up with a better design.
As i was doing this i decided i wanted to keep some of the original book's layout. I wanted to keep the placement of the title and author's name in similar places, and also keep the horizontal band across the middle part of the book.
The most striking design aspect i used was contrast. I chose to go with a black and white contrast because it is simple, and elegant. I wanted the design to be able to stand out, but also to work well with both the QR tag and the UPC code. The colors of the book will pop, and draw the attention of the readers.
Something fun i did with the re-design was in the title. I used the different styles of fonts listed in the book, and applied them to the word "design" in the title. I felt that it would reinforce the idea that this was a design book, but also be a fun playful aspect to the book.
The biggest thing i wanted to do with this redesign was to reinforce the idea of culture in design. In order to do this, i had to think about what design meant to people in our generation. The first thing that came to mind was of course Photoshop! Graphic design is a very popular activity among people in my generation, and the most prominent tool in their arsenal is Photoshop. To reinforce the aspect of culture the most important thing to do was to create a book that looked like a work in progress. In order to do so i included the grid-lines, which are a very prominent part of design. I made sure that the canvas and lines were a nice enough proportion to each other. While i di not use them exactly to align everything on the cover, i made sure that the did not look intrusive or distracting to the design. I also felt like i should include the mouse pointer, as it makes it feel like they are looking right at a computer. Originally i planned to go even further and add more Photoshop elements into the design, but felt that their addition would be too distracting, and would not properly convey the right message.
Finally, i once again included a QR tag into my design. These tags are the wave of the future. They allow you to quickly aggregate information with the click of a button. The one on this cover goes to the book's Amazon page.
My final re-design, and very cool book cover.
Good design. Probably want to go with color, perhaps on the multiple fonts for "design," as color is very catching and hugely important in design itself. Could chunk the content, perhaps, better, by placing the QR tag closer to the name. Good thinking with the mouse and grid lines. Clever concept. Don't want the grid lines showing though the QR tag. Might make use of those grid lines with the multiple "Design" words. Good thinking regarding culture and photoshop.
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