For my 'Emil and the Detectives' brief, I started with the ideas that I had been most excited to experiment with. This was to practice with emphasising the spine of the book, and somehow have a design around that. Not many books do this, but when it is done, it actually looks really clever and will definitely stand out amongst others on the shelf. One thing I did not do with this brief, was choose the colour palette because being honest I was really unsure of what to go for. Yellow was a reoccurring colour throughout all of my Emil research and pops up on almost every cover! But Penguin were asking for something different, something new and exciting, so I ignored that reoccurring colour and went with whatever colour I thought worked well.
I started by making my detective. I kept him very simple as you can see because the book is catered to children and I didn't want to over complicate or confuse younger readers. I also added a looking glass because it may give more clues to the children what the story is about. I made his suit a very vibrant colour also because I think children love things that excite them and colour is one of these.
I then duplicated my detective three times, and changed the hue/saturation of their suits so that they would look different yet compliment each other just the same. I made sure that the orange detective was in the centre, and that he could look suitable after binding. I duplicated him once more, and then used a colour overlay in black, and placing him behind the other three to emulate a shadow. This is to represent the mystery and the evil in the book.
Next I added some train tracks! This is because this is the point where Emil meets the detective... on a train! So like I had planned, I wanted to involve attributes that were actually involved in the book, because I want children to immediately be captivated and engaged with it. Also because the background I have chosen is a cardboard/old dirty paper type of shade, I thought I would make an imprint for the title, as if it were actually an old envelope. The book was originally published in 1929, so I thought adding some archaic aspects from that era would match and suit the book perfectly! I tried to incorporate every element! I also used an old type writer font because I wanted it to match an actual type writer, going along with my themes.
I then used the same font for the blurb but also used some of the colours from the detectives suits just to make everything tie in together.
I did have an issue with a bunch of empty space on the front page where the bike is on the image above. Before the bike, there seemed to be too much space, so I added it in, not only because it is something that Emil rides, but also because it adds some extra detail to the front cover, as all three covers have to work together (cohesion).
And this is the final design! I really like how it came out, even though I really struggled with colour and position at times. I think this is mainly due to me wanting to have the spine as the central focus, but it was a challenge and in the end I was able to work with what I had set myself.
I did end up having a go at changing the colour palette again, just to see if any colours worked better and I ended up with this version. I actually really like it, and I think it would be much suited to these 'modern' readers. But I am not sure if it is 'children' material. Though it is vivid and vibrant, I am not sure if the other colour palette, with the greens and purples would be more appealing to a younger audience. I am going to ask a few people what they think, before submitting my designs!
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