Penguin Book Cover - Brief and Judges

Brief for In Cold Blood from estudio and notes:

Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 20mm, incorporating all the PENGUIN branding and all additional elements such as the bar code.

Make it interesting and different.

It needs to be original to stand out amongst the rest.

What the judges are looking for:

We are looking for a striking cover design that is well executed, has an imaginative concept and clearly places the book for its market. While all elements of the jacket need to work together as a cohesive whole, remember that the front cover must be effective on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting. It also needs to be able to work onscreen for digital retailers such as Amazon.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

Copyright must be cleared for all images used in your cover design and you must include a credit line on the back cover of your design for any third party images used. For example: ‘Cover photograph by Joe Bloggs’.You need people to see your work and the essence of graphic design is communication. There is no value producing work for it to be placed in a drawer. Often the best work or best ideas are the ones that people have seen. You must get use to distributing your work at the any available opportunity.Remember design is about doing.This is an opportunity to visually and conceptually exploit every possible angle of your ideas. We are expecting a visual feast of ideas before you even consider resolving the problem.