Penguin Random House: To Kill A Mockingbird brief 2017

Brief

We would like you to design a new and classic cover for this book. The trick here will be to come at it from a fresh perspective and to avoid repeating the obvious iconography from the many previous editions in print. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book in order to get a sense of the beautiful writing, this will only help to inspire your design. The cover should feel timeless and confident, and appeal to a whole new generation of readers.

The winning design will need to: 

have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief 

be competently executed with strong use of typography 

appeal to a contemporary readership 

show a good understanding of the marketplace 

have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against 

The closing date for entries is 12:00 (GMT) on Tuesday 7 March 2017.

Initial Thoughts

Now that the books have been released for this years book design competition, I'm really excited to get started as I regrettably didn't take part last year. The books chosen for this year, To Kill a Mockingbird, In Cold Blood, and The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 3/4, are all incredibly diverse in terms of genre. I feel that my particular tone of voice lies with To Kill A Mockingbird/Adult Fiction brief because although it is told through the eyes of a child, it still has serious undertones - I like to think that my work would fit in to a serious genre although it is quite colourful and bold. 

I think this brief fits into my focus of creating work for commercial briefs as book cover design is highly commercial, and demonstrates my ability to use text and image in one product - something that I'm identifying that I enjoy doing in my practice. I like creating the images but also using text to make a finished product, so this brief should be a good opportunity to explore those elements.