Art 235 Book Cover Redo - Crime and Punishment
When given a chance to improve. I will always take it. Even if it only means making small changes. For this cover. I changed the placement of "punishment" and made the font consistent. Following the guidelines given in my critique it makes the cover more readable. I also corrected the spelling error in the author's name. That was my humble pie moment. I tend to be quite snippy about spelling errors on graphic design projects, and it wasn't until long after I turned this one in that I realized there was an error.
I changed the and to & and the font for "PUNISHMENT" AND "DOSTOYVSKY" from a script to a straight font as it was suggested by my instructor. My original idea behind the script was the signing of papers when prisoners are sent away to prison or the idea of signing your life away. It was clearer in my mind than it translated on the cover. For the updated cover I went with a straight, non serif font, very much like prison bars.
The final cover is the handmade cover. The picture remains as the only thing handmade. I could not get the color to stay red enough with colored pencils or chalk so I resorted to Photoshop. The title and author's name are hand written. One of the critiques was that the font's didn't match because I used computer text for the author and the title was hand written. This time, I wrote both of them. The other change I made was to distort the clothing of the model. Another critique I received on the original was the the boots were in context but the shirt was too dressy. I had wanted him in all black, but I could see his point after the critique, so I blurred the image. I feel it adds to the concept of the protagonist painting himself into a corner with his actions. I probably have redone this cover 10 times at this point playing with the color, text and spacing. This is the strongest version. It's still not perfect, but I feel like it finally tells the story I was trying to convey.
