Category Archives: Part 2

Brief: Following on from the discussion of George Orwell’s novel 1984, look at the covers for Margaret Atwood’s equally dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), in which a woman finds herself surviving inside a harsh American fundamentalist society, that sees women’s roles as subservient cooks, matrons, and mothers. Alternatively, you can pick a different bookContinue reading “Exercise 4: Designing a Cover”

Brief: This exercise hopes to broaden your understanding of other book designers’ work by looking at their cover designs. Start to identify the kinds of book covers you are drawn to, and critically assess why you think these designs are successful. Undertake a combination of library and internet research into the following designers, identifying aContinue reading “Exercise 3: Book Designers”

The kind of stock you choose will be informed by the nature of the job you’re doing. If you were working commercially, the checking paper quality – the weight and finish of the paper – is something you would do with your client, as paper choices can add both quality and cost to a designContinue reading “Exercise 2: Paper and Binding choices”

Brief: Identify a range of books that have fundamentally different functions in terms of how these books are engaged with – how they’re held, where they’re read, by whom, and for what purpose. Try to look at least six books, but you can extend this if you want to. The differences between these books mightContinue reading “Exercise 1: The Function of Books”