Being limited to type only with my first design gave me the idea of focusing on the part of the book that gives the novel its title. As it's a literary classic I thought it would be a good idea to have a parchment-like background for the type to go on. I chose a readable, classic-looking typeface and typed the relevant passage onto the background. It looked a bit dull so I decided to bring out the title by colouring it red and then provided some contrast with the black by colouring the essence of Catch-22 white. Once I'd gone with red for the title the same colour for the author was obvious. To add the the 'classic' status I decided to go with a red (colour-coordinated) penguin at the top.
The back cover was great fun and I really enjoyed created a new logo for Penguin 20th Century Classics. The exercise asked me to take into account any house rules but (as discussed in my previous post) the current penguin classics are so poor I decided to go with a complete redesign. I stuck with the red, white and black colour scheme but went with a more canonical Engravers typeface for the logo, title, author and details. For the quotes and book description I kept with Garamond for readability and continuity.
The spine was relatively straightforward. I went with Engravers in capitals and maintained the colour scheme. The only decision was the placing of the author and title. After some playing around I really liked the arrangement I ended up with. It is a bit different yet very classic and stylish.
Thinking of a illustrative/photographic cover was more difficult. The danger was that a visual image of the novel - a plane, warfare, etc - wouldn't do justice to the literary depth, humour and universality of the novel. It's a few years since I read the book so I did some research to remind myself of the subject matter and learnt that the airmen fly B-25s. I googled this for images and decided it would be fun to depict the cover in the style of nose art. This would allow me to use humour and at the same time reflect the subject matter.
I used a green background and added rivets for realism to suggest a plane's fuselage. The name of the pilots is normally written in simple, white lettering and I copied this fir the author's name and changed the opacity to give it a more realistic feel. I then copied some nose art that appealed to me for the title - I also thought the colours of red with yellow outline would sit perfectly with the dark green background. After I'd added the bombs in the top left hand corner I still felt something was missing. I went back to the nose art and decided to add some flailing legs which echoes the humour of the novel. After adding some bullet holes I then moved the title and author slightly off-page to add a touch of both realism and humour
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I decided to go with the same theme for the back cover and spine. I didn't want anything too garish as I felt the back cover at least should reflect the book's classic status. White on green looked good so I went with this and I reversed the bullet holes so it looked like they'd passed through the book.
My only job on the spine was to run the rivets so that they linked up. I played around a bit with the opacity of the name and penguin logo to make the title stand out all in white.
I'm pleased with how both covers turned out. I think that the type cover really communicates the essence of the book and its 'classic' status. Although initially I was less enthusiastic about doing the illustrated cover I feel that the strength of it is that it would appeal to a broader range of people. Its front cover is playful and appealing while the back cover communicates the more 'classic' aspect of the book. Aesthetically I think hat the type cover just shades it but that in terms of communicating to the reader what the book is about and appealing to a wide readership, I think that my plane cover is the better design. For these reasons i think that the green cover is the marginally more successful of the two.
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