(B4) FORMER PENGUIN BOOKS WINNERS

I took a look at former winners of the Penguin Books Competition to see what common design features have been used and the sort of type experimentation that they have done. I specifically selected these three to look at because some of the contexts are similar and they are all winners of the Adult Non- Fiction award which is what I will be entering. 

• I really like the design of this book, you immediately understand the concept even if there was no textual information at all. The design is extremely well considered, through the typography and the imagery even though it is quite minimal. 
• The typographic design on the front cover is really smart and very well applied to the back end quotes. 
• It would be good to try and translate this to The Uninhabitable Earth, using points from the book to come up with a smart and professional design
• The context of the book is completely different to The Uninhabitable Earth however, in the same vein, the numbers that scientists kind of throw out there to the public do sometimes hide the real implications. People engage with warnings and disaster rather than numbers, this could be something to consider for the cover design. 

• The context of this book is obviously scientific and mathematical given its writer and title. This is more in line with The Uninhabitable Earth being that it speaks of a lot of theory and scientific findings. 
• The designs look typical of a diagram used to explain such theories. The simplicity of the shapes allows the strange layout of the typography to remain legible whilst also engaging the audience in gathering an understanding of what it is saying. Much like how they will read the book. 

• This is a little less abstract in nature and more literal. A lot of the elements, type included, resemble items used by the police like the felt pin up notice board and blackboard used on the bottom third of the design. 
• I think the drawn diagram used on both the front and back cover is meant to resemble the height measure used to identify a suspects height in mug shot images. But, it also looks like the older telephone poles that are seen in a lot of old photographs in places like Kansas.

• This is a photograph from the book and you can see the telephone poles that I aforementioned. 
• Interestingly, there is one beside the house of the victims in the book so, I think it makes a very considered illustration for the front cover

After, looking at these three books it is clear that there has been heavy consideration of the context of the book. A lot of the design features are quite subtle but collectively provide a clear image of the content of the book. I want to make sure my designs are as considered as these and I aim to be playful with the type and image. They do mention in their brief that they specifically look for these qualities and I think it is obvious that all of these cover designs have them.