Brief: For this exercise you are going to mock-up a book cover.
I chose to do a book cover for Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933 and set in the late 1920s. It is an autobiographical story in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is a picaresque account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp’s perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.
http://georgeorwellnovels.com/books/about-down-and-out-in-paris-and-london
I read this novel last year and it made a real impression on me on so many levels.
The 1st thing was how committed George Orwell was to his art form!! To literally live on the breadline working as a plongeur (restaurant dishwasher) in dirty Paris kitchens, for hours that would be un heard of in this day and age and then literally living as a homeless man on the streets of London moving from one spike (homeless shelter) to the next!
He paints a clear picture of life in the poverty cycle from an emotional level as well as a practical level. You describes the intense hunger that he feels and the fatigue and apathy that is a direct result of this. He explores how a person in such a state is an 'alien' to society and loses all worth and dignity. It certainly made me re-evaluate the way in which I viewed homelessness, even in today's society.
The first thing I did in preparation for the brief was have a look at other book covers that I was immediately attracted to:
Some of my favourite book covers are the new covers for the classic novels by Vladimir Nabokov:
The next thing I did was to create a mood board with images relating to living in poverty i.e. being 'down and out' the 1920s. I searched for images referencing plongeurs, homeless men, Paris, London and Spikes as well as tried to consider colours and textures that would convey the mood of hopelessness and apathy and defeat that George Orwell describes in the novel.
Here are a few of the images I found on the internet:
The final step before I started to experiment was to look at current book covers for this novel:
After the prep I decided to launch in and try a variety of techniques. I started with a pencil sketch of the character above *. I then re-did the sketch but this time I did it with a brush pen and quink.
Finally I decided to try 2 different lino cut versions which were to be more stylised then the other versions.
I really enjoyed this exercise and trying different versions. I didn't quite finish the line drawing version and may still try to do this. I used an image editing programme called Pixelmator to add the typed text into the images which was definitely a learning curve for me.
For the quink version: I chose to use the font 'American Typewrite' because George Orwell was also trying to make money as a writer and english teacher...although unsuccessfully...and I therefore wanted to echo the idea of using a typewriter. I picked up the blue from the palette created by the ink itself but feel that perhaps it gets lost a little bit in the dark background.
The lino versions are more graphic but clearer then the softer quink version. For these two versions I steered away from the American Typewriter font purely because it just didn't look right.
For the text version I decided to rely purely on semiotics to express someone being pushed down by society and also being pushed to the outskirts of society, almost classed as an outsider to the human race.
For the lino figure I had to learn very quickly that detail and lino don't mix and therefore had to enlarge my figure and simplify it.
I am not sure which work better as I feel they each have positives and negatives about them. The more emotive quink version as opposed to the more striking easy to read lino prints.....I am hoping that feedback from my tutor will shed a bit more light on this.
I chose to do a book cover for Down and out in Paris and London by George Orwell.
Down and Out in Paris and London is the first full-length work by the English author George Orwell, published in 1933 and set in the late 1920s. It is an autobiographical story in two parts on the theme of poverty in the two cities. The first part is a picaresque account of living on the breadline in Paris and the experience of casual labour in restaurant kitchens. The second part is a travelogue of life on the road in and around London from the tramp’s perspective, with descriptions of the types of hostel accommodation available and some of the characters to be found living on the margins.
http://georgeorwellnovels.com/books/about-down-and-out-in-paris-and-london
I read this novel last year and it made a real impression on me on so many levels.
The 1st thing was how committed George Orwell was to his art form!! To literally live on the breadline working as a plongeur (restaurant dishwasher) in dirty Paris kitchens, for hours that would be un heard of in this day and age and then literally living as a homeless man on the streets of London moving from one spike (homeless shelter) to the next!
He paints a clear picture of life in the poverty cycle from an emotional level as well as a practical level. You describes the intense hunger that he feels and the fatigue and apathy that is a direct result of this. He explores how a person in such a state is an 'alien' to society and loses all worth and dignity. It certainly made me re-evaluate the way in which I viewed homelessness, even in today's society.
The first thing I did in preparation for the brief was have a look at other book covers that I was immediately attracted to:
Some of my favourite book covers are the new covers for the classic novels by Vladimir Nabokov:
The next thing I did was to create a mood board with images relating to living in poverty i.e. being 'down and out' the 1920s. I searched for images referencing plongeurs, homeless men, Paris, London and Spikes as well as tried to consider colours and textures that would convey the mood of hopelessness and apathy and defeat that George Orwell describes in the novel.
Here are a few of the images I found on the internet:
 |
| * This image stuck out the most for me and I decided to start off with experimenting with it as the basis for my book covers. |
After the prep I decided to launch in and try a variety of techniques. I started with a pencil sketch of the character above *. I then re-did the sketch but this time I did it with a brush pen and quink.
Finally I decided to try 2 different lino cut versions which were to be more stylised then the other versions.
 |
| Rough Sketch |
 |
| Final Quink Book cover with front, spine and back |
Front of Lino one text version
 |
| Final Lino figure version |
 |
| Back and spine of Lino versions |
I really enjoyed this exercise and trying different versions. I didn't quite finish the line drawing version and may still try to do this. I used an image editing programme called Pixelmator to add the typed text into the images which was definitely a learning curve for me.
For the quink version: I chose to use the font 'American Typewrite' because George Orwell was also trying to make money as a writer and english teacher...although unsuccessfully...and I therefore wanted to echo the idea of using a typewriter. I picked up the blue from the palette created by the ink itself but feel that perhaps it gets lost a little bit in the dark background.
The lino versions are more graphic but clearer then the softer quink version. For these two versions I steered away from the American Typewriter font purely because it just didn't look right.
For the text version I decided to rely purely on semiotics to express someone being pushed down by society and also being pushed to the outskirts of society, almost classed as an outsider to the human race.
For the lino figure I had to learn very quickly that detail and lino don't mix and therefore had to enlarge my figure and simplify it.
I am not sure which work better as I feel they each have positives and negatives about them. The more emotive quink version as opposed to the more striking easy to read lino prints.....I am hoping that feedback from my tutor will shed a bit more light on this.
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