Monday, October 26, 2015

Agatha Christie Competition- 'Hickory Dickory Dock'


This is my final design for our study task, in which we were given the book title by random. Before I even began I knew I wanted to do the title up and down as it is from a nursery rhyme and is a fun and playful title, but the red and shadows contrast this and show its sinister themes of murder and mystery.

After google image searching its previous covers, many had some red to represent the danger and death theme which arises in Christie's novels. Also, I noticed a lot of this muted yellow shade which I colour copied, and I think this is due to it's contrast against a lot of the red used which is readable in a not too brash way.

To make it look like a book rather than just a poster, adding the top part and using its original tagline for crime club, it keeps it looking classic. This is also why I chose such typefaces- all very easy to read, with a very classic old book/movie poster look to them. It withholds the fact her novels are classic reads.

For 'Dickory' i had used berbel serif regular, which has a retro twist to it and looked good as added variation but overall it was too thin of a typeface in comparison to these bold other ones.

The shadow idea came after I had arranged the title to be all black- I know the typefaces were working great, and I had separately kerned each one, but small detail was missing. Therefore, adding the shadows can further highlight the contrast between the innocent nursery rhyme and its sinister themes within the novel, Poirot trying to figure out what has been lurking in the shadows of mystery. I liked the changeover of colour, but then when it came to adding shadows to dock i felt like it didn't need them as it is in a much larger size and it was well composed as it was. The shadows I think really set this, and the design is justifiable. I don't think a novel with a title such as this needs any imagery, as the play on words in its layout and the amount of words is enough.

No comments:

Post a Comment