BOOK COVERS project 3 process book
ETHAN SCHREIBER alex anderson . visc 304 . spring 2022
2 | BOOK COVERS PROCESS BOOK
ETHAN SCHREIBER
project description
overview
Pulling from a list of classic banned books, the purpose of this project was to create three distinct book covers. Each cover had to be based off of:
I think this is one of the more basic projects in terms of process and deliverables, but it was a tough project as far as how hard I had to push to get strong concepts. In fact, once I did have strong concepts, excecuting them in a sucessful way was difficult at times.
1) Person: a character from the book 2) Place: setting 3) Thing: representative object.
table of contents 3 4-6 7-9 10 11-13 13-17 18-25 26-34 34-37
research moodboards sketches type studies computer explorations refinements full covers variations final
First 3 moodboards were created, followed by at least 60 sketches. After digitizing the most sucessful sketches and working through a set of type studies, a couple options of front covers were created for each of the three final concepts. Those were refined then fleshed out into full covers which could be whittled down, iterated on, and turned into the three final covers.
I thoroughly enjoyed the project and how fast paced it was toward the start. I think diving right in to deep research and having the project due in less than a month helped me to create stronger concepts from the start and forced me to make descisions quicker than I usually can when cutting designs. I also like that this project specifically asked for distinction between the three final images. Sometimes I feel pressured to make all of my deliverables fit into the same theme, but being told to make them all different made it so much more fun to explore.
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research
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.7.22
1.
Illustration | Bright, happy | Illustrator line work, monotone w/ spot colors
2.
Illustration/Image | Sad, cramped | Posterized photo, negative space cropped
3.
Illustration | Bright | Overlapping images/text,
4.
Illustration | Sad, lonely, aging | Digital drawing, analogous colors
5.
Physical/photo | Lonely/Longing | Physical type, handmade, borders
6.
Illustration | Off-putting | Collage illustration, saturated, separate text
7.
Photo/Graphic | Bright/Serious | Colorized image layered over itself
8.
Illustration | Serious, Nervous | Interacting elements, black and white w red
9.
Illustration | Dark, serious, scary | One image containing two, textured back
10. Type/Illustration | Fun, Bright, A bit off | Text and image interacting, contrasting colors 11. Illustration | Nostalgia, lonely | Text and image interacting 12. Illustration | Happy, Light-hearted | Collage, probably digital, type separate 13. Painting | Lonely, chaotic, sad | Handmade looking painting and type 14. Photo/Graphic | Nostalgic, sad, upset | Juxtaposed images, hand torn edges 15. Photo/Illustration | Ominous | Layered transparent image over illustration
1.
A Clockwork Orange
2.
Anthony Burgess- Known for his writing and longing to be known for his music, Burgess was a British playwriting, composer, and novelist born in 1917 Manchester during the Great Depression. His mother and sister died the year following his birth, and his father died by the time Burgess was 20. He graduated with a BA in English Language and Literature, spent six years in the army, was married two years after he graduated then moved on to a career in teaching, writing, and composing. He died in 1993 and is best known for A Clockwork Orange, though he wishes he were not.
3.
The Wanting Seed, Earthly Powers, 1985, A Mouthful of Air, One Hand Clapping
4.
Broken down into three parts, A Clockwork Orange oversees the rise, the fall, and the symbolic resurrection of the protagonist, a 15 year old criminal, Alex. The first part depicts Alex and his droogs (friends) as they parade around their dystopian, totalitarian state, assumed to be England or some version of it, in the near future (as of 1962). They partake in crime sprees consisting of robbing and beating old men, gang fights, raping women, and breaking into homes. After his gang turns on him, he is sentenced to 14 years in federal prison. In the second part, we find Alex in prison, slowly figuring out how to fit in in the system, but finds an opportunity to get out early by undergoing two weeks of an experimental treatment meant to make him fit for society. The experience turns out to be a series of tortuous treatments leaving him physically ill at the thought of violence. Part three opens on him finally free from jail, but he soon learns that the life he left in the free world is no longer there for him. With no home, and characters from his past life coming back to exact their revenge, he looks for for solace and find it in a man who he once attacked and raped the wife of, but the man does not recognize him and takes him into his home. The man soon learns of Alex’s experience in jail and begins to use him as a politician pawn against the state. Tired of being used to push agendas, Alex attempts to take his own life, but fails resulting in hospitalization. Throughout his time in the his treatment is undone, and Alex
ends up assembling a new gang and falling back into his old habits. The American version of the novel ends here, but in the original, he grows tired of this way of life and the book closes on him hoping to abandon it and start a new life with a family and a child. 5.
The book is angsty, confusing, and unsettling. The subject matter is gruesome and hard to digest at times, while the setting and unique vernacular of the main character make it hard to even understand what is happening until you are halfway into the book and start learning.
6.
There are multiple messages that can be interpreted from the book, good vs evil, capitalism/communism and how they affect society, etc. I think the most interesting is the idea (seen in the full version) that youth is destined to heed the warnings of those who came before and instead will have to make the same mistakes before they learn and grow up. The title though, and most likely the most central message, refers to the question of is ensured, but forced, peace any better than the allowance of free will at the risk of evil?
7.
Alex, the protagonist, serves as the narrator of the story. At the start of the book he is 15, he is a violent criminal teenager that reigns terror on the city with his gang. He prides himself on his appearance, as he is dressed in is considered the height of fashion with the youth. He values music, and he closely associates it with violence and finds comfort in both. He speaks in nadsat, a language of slang based on Russian. a. “What’s it going to be then, eh?” b. “They don’t go into the cause of goodness,so why of the other shop? . . . Badness is of the self, the one, the you or me on our oddy knockies, and that self is made by old Bog or God and is his great pride and radosty. But the not-self cannot have the bad, meaning they of the government and the judges and the schools cannot allow the bad because they cannot allow the self. And is not our modern history, my brothers, the story of brave malenky selves fighting these big machines?”
c. “Common criminals like this unsavoury crowd”--(that meant me, brothers, as well as the others, who were real prestoopnicks and treacherous with it)--“can best be dealt with on a purely curative basis. Kill the criminal reflex, that’s all. Full implementation in a year’s time. Punishment means nothing to them, you can see that. They enjoy their so-called punishment. They start murdering each other.” 8.
F. Alexander serves as a foil to Alex, described as a man “youngish… with horn-rimmed otchkies on him”. Though unnamed throughout the beginning of the book, when he returns in the third part, he comes back in a strong way. The fact that they share the same name makes him a great way to represent the exact opposite of Alex. I think his role is super interesting, the juxtaposition from part one, where he is a victim of Alex’s, to part three where he takes on a fatherlike role, only to in turn victimize Alex, is such an interesting character development. He is an intelligent type that owns a country home and writes books, writing a book with the title “A Clockwork Orange” when we are first introduced to him. a. “The attempt to impose upon man, a creature of growth and capable of sweetness, to ooze juicily at the last round the bearded lips of God, to attempt to impose, I say, laws and conditions appropriate to a mechanical creation, against this I raise my sword-pen.” b. “I think you can help dislodge this overbearing Government. To turn a decent young man into a piece of clockwork should not, surely, be seen as any triumph for any government, save one that boasts of its repressiveness.” c. “They have turned you into something other than a human being. You have no power of choice any longer. You are committed to socially acceptable acts, a little machine capable only of good. And I see that clearly-that business about the marginal conditionings. Music and the sexual act, literature and art, all must be a source now not of pleasure but of pain.”
9.
The book takes place in no specific destination, but can be assumed to be a dystopian city in England, and it is framed as a near future (but was written in 1962, so that future has likely passed by now). There are a couple distinct places that I would frame as important locations- F. Alexander’s house, a nice and small cottage inside a village, the outside of the house marked with a sign reading “home”. ; Korova Milkbar, a bar that serves milk with hallucinogenic and other drugs, though there is not much of a visual description of it; Staja 84F, a dark and overcrowded state jail or the hospital building that contrasts it, with a screening room that features a large screen, a dentist’s chair with wires and restraints running through it, and a viewing area; Alex’s bedroom, described as “Here was my bed and my stereo, pride of my jeezny, and my discs in their cupboard, and banners and flags on the wall…”; the Cat Lady’s house, a sophisticated, individualistic house with “room you could viddy a lot of old pictures on the walls and starry very elaborate clocks, also some like vases and ornaments that looked starry and dorogoy”. The majority of the settings are moody and dark, run down, and just a little bit off from what we would expect.
10. Some important things to the story would be the milk that to me serves as a good central image, it is drugged with stimulants or hallucinogens; the typewriter used by F. Alexander, on a table scattered with papers; the razor that Alex keeps on him, used throughout the novel to cut his droogs, attack people, and when he is put on display attempted to use to attack but instead tried to give away; The dentist’s chair, needles, or records could also be seen as central objects to the story. The objects all in some way represent violence and the dangerous youth, aside from the typewriter that almost serves as a direct contrast to those things. 11. I picked the story because I hate it while reading but I do respect it as a work of art. I think it is hard to read but that makes it successful in trying to get its message across.
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moodboards
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
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moodboards
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
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moodboards
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
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sketches
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
My “person” concepts focused on the main character and narrator Alex. The main ideas that I focused on when creating these were: Violent crimes committed by Alex. The three stages of self that Alex takes on through duing the book. Being crushed and controled by the government. Being a cog in the machine. Feeling empty and purposeless. From the start I wanted to stay away from a photorealistic face and keep the faces in this cover abstracted or obscured. I wanted the reader to not associate this character with any specific type of person, so that they could draw their conclusions about the character from his actions, not his appearance.
people
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sketches
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
My “place” concepts felt unclear to me as I created them. I used the locations of the jail, the observations room, and the scenes of Alex’s crimes as a jumping off point. As I moved forward, I also started using the general ideas of what the world in the book may look like. Unfortunately, some of these did fall into the “recreating scenes from the novel” category, none of which moved forward to digital studies. The general idea I got from critiques on this was to keep it abstract and loose and refference less literal places and objects from the book. Overall the world is run down and decrepit, with little oases of peace. That peace was then interrupted by the actions of our characters, so I wanted to find some way to show that.
places
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sketches
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.12.22
The “thing” studies I created were not as focued on one specific object, but instead focused on how many different things from the book could interact to create something new. The things I chose to use include, but are not limited to, milk, records, weapons, books, needs, bottles, typewriters, paper, gears, and blood, and somehow breaking, distorting, or abstracting them in some way. So many important objects were featured in the book, all of them innocent in nature, but tainted by the characters. They were things that had been misused in odd, violent, and painful ways.
things
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type studies
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.19.22
Some of these studies are rooted in actual ideas from the book, such as the cut up typewriter font. Most of them, however, were created by roughing up and distorting clean fonts or trying to make weird and messy fonts work in a more serious fashion, tying back to the general vibe of the book.
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ETHAN SCHREIBER
digital studies
This cover focused on the three different phases that Alex goes through in the book. On the far left, you can see a happy Alex, as he is content in his life of crime. In the center is a frightened version of Alex that is being broken down, jailed, and experiemented on. On the right is the face of pain as Alex has to deal with fact that despite being free, he will never actually be free.
4.19.22
This cover depicts the fact of Alex in the broken pieces of a Beethoven cover. It represents not only the way Alex is broken himself, but moreso the way Alex bastardizes and taints the aestetically beatiful things in life (such as the music of Beethoven) and turns them from a source of pleasure into a source of pain.
This more modern interpretation of the novel is meant to show the way that Alex is truly “just another cog in the machine”. As different and special as he is, he will never truly break away from the mold and becoming anything more than himself. Throughout his life he will forever just be used and abused by the system and becomes just another face in the crowd in the end.
This cover takes the notariety that Alex and his actions achieve throughout the book and puts them at center stage. Unfortunately, they are obscured and will never truly be understood (should they be?). His actions become just another mess in an already broken world and this cover is meant to reflect that.
Fairly straightforward, this cover depicts a wanted poster for Alex. There is a tear through the face to push the idea of a broken character that will in the end just be looked over (also partially to acheive my goal of not assigning a specific face to the character).
people
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ETHAN SCHREIBER
digital studies
This cover melds the locations of the jail Alex is imprisoned in and the hospital he is transferred to to undergo testing. The concept shows the way the two are connected and implys that even though he is on the path to freedom once he goes in for treatment, he still is just as trapped as before.
4.19.22
In a much more reduced capacity than it was shown in the sketches, this cover is meant to show the sharp difference between the locations Alex appears in throughout the book. The left side, light shining in from a nice window, and the right with light sort of coming in from between the bars of a jail cell. Printability did inhibit this design.
This concept representing the “Milk Bar” deviates from the others and more reflects the state of the world as a whole, rather than the most impactful locations. The eye in spilt milk is meant to show the way every person in the Milk Bar was being observed and judged by Alex in the opening scene, also just contributing to an unsettling vibe.
This concept depicts Alex banging on the doors of his victims before he makes his way in, but replaces the window on the door with the bars of a jail cell. The inclusion of the lock is very intentional, as it is meant to show that Alex is either locked out or locked into every significant location in this book.
This cover is more about the general vibe and feeling of the setting. The broken window being a pretty literal manifestation of the broken world, while also signifying the rampant crime and vandalization. The face screaming on the inside is meant to further show how unsettling the world is.
places
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ETHAN SCHREIBER
digital studies
Milk is one of the most iconic images to come from the book, so I wanted to use it in an unfamiliar way here. I used it as a lightbulb, tying back to my Moodboard #3, with the contrast between dark and light being a major thematic element in the writing.
4.19.22
This cover depicts a record playing on a turntable, with an eye in the center. The eye, while just unsettling, is intended to mean two things. It can be seen as the general public eye that is on Alex throughout the book, but is also a very literal depiction of Alex’s eye being pried open duing his experiements, with the turntable needle being the claw forcing it open.
This concept meshes the records with the blade Alex keeps with him throughout the book. The slicing of the record nods to the few times Alex himself is actually the one who is cut by his own knife.
This concept means to show “object” without actually showing the object in question. It would have the aftermath of a book cover being cut by Alex. Alternatively this could be interpreted as the paper that was torn by Alex in the first scene at F. Alexander’s house.
Just a mixing of two important elements from the book, this concept plays on the visual aspect of a milk bottle resembling a medicine bottle.
things
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refinements
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.21.22
people
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refinements
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.21.22
people
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refinements
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.21.22
places
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refinements
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.21.22
things
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
people
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
people
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
people
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
places
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
places
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
things
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
things
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full covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.26.22
things
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
people
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
people
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
people
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
places
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
places
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
places
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
things
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
things
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variations
ETHAN SCHREIBER
4.28.22
things
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final covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
5.3.22
people
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final covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
5.3.22
places
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final covers
ETHAN SCHREIBER
5.3.22
things