First of all in my proposal/pitch I broke down the brief into four main points as a reference I could easily remember in my head what the design should achieve these four points were: 'A striking cover design, imaginative concept, a strong use of typography and eye catching'.
I am going to write how I think my design has achieved these four points.
To begin with I feel my design is definitely a striking cover design. It has avoided the existing cliche designs of having a friendly atmosphere with all four characters happy in a field next to a river. Mine is pretty much the opposite in that it is focused on a dark phase of the book where mole is lost in the woods and ratty s looking for him, mole looks scared and lost on the front book cover, surrounded by darkness and evil eyes glaring him. It gives this horrifying mood across, it makes you look at the cover and think oh what could possibly be in those woods. It gives mystery to it. Unlike the other covers where there's not really anything questionable going on in the cover. My art style of how I have done my trees, in a curved 2d pointy style to give that spooky and sophisticated look, makes the cover look striking.
The penguin brief wanted an imaginative concept which I think my design comfortably fits with this point, there's no other book cover for The Wind in the Willows like mine, mine is themed on a dark side of the book whereas every other is on a happy side. My cover emphasizes this by the range of dark colors filling the book, with dark gradients giving that edgy look, if the cover was plain block colors then it wouldn't give that as edgy look than what gradients give. The time the cover is set is at night which automatically gives a spooky mood. The element about my cover which I think compliments this main point is the footsteps from mole which follows through from the back cover to the front cover. The footsteps fade gradually from the front to the back to show that the foot steps are getting older and older. These footsteps are like what strings the front cover and back cover together, it is the main focal point of the book because they are the tracks for ratty to follow to find mole, so without these footsteps there wouldn't really be a story or scene in this cover. The front and back cover wouldn't have an as strong design as there wouldn't be as much relation between them.
I'm very satisfied with my typography on the book cover I think it is very strong and again comfortable fits the brief. First of all before I chose what type face I wanted I already had a feel of what I wanted the book cover to communicate to the audience, I wanted a spooky and dark mood. The type face was so important to fit this as it is what the audience are going to be looking at first when looking to buy the book in a book shop. So I had to consider, was the font clear to read? did it fit the design/theme? Did it stand out? and I feel strong that my font achieved this. My typeface looks spooky and the serif on the font suits well with how I designed the trees. How I laid out the type with having 'The' much smaller sitting on the 'W' of 'Wind' and then having ' in the' in the same size sitting on top of each other on the right of 'Wind' then having 'Willows' in the same size as 'Wind' sitting underneath it gave a nice look, it looked dynamic and symmetrical. It was still clear to read and the color of it being black and on the white/grey snow stands out and contrasted nicely. My secondary typeface I took a lot of consideration choosing, I wanted it to match the primary typeface as much as possible, and after a lot of research the one I chose I was very content with. I think it matches very well, it looks spooky but not as emphasized and is clear to read as a small piece of text on the blurb.
Lastly the final point was 'eye catching' I think if my book cover was on a bookshelf with others around it, it would be eye catching. The colors stand out a lot, and nice contrasting on one another, night scenes stand out more from a daytime scenes because they are less common, just like mine. I think people would look at it and think 'oh, thats strange for wind in the willows' and will take more notice and consideration of it. The evil eyes glaring from the surroundings draw your eye to see whats going on, and the falling snow and snowflakes give that little charm to the book which makes the artwork look more pleasing to the eye, book covers are all about audience and satisfying the eye to the customer and overall I am happy with how I have think I have matched this.
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