Day Forty-One - John Gray’s Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus

I’d known for a while I wanted to do a double-ended cover for this book and this concept looked a lot better in my head than it does in execution. Despite getting some decent feedback on it I think it looks like a tacky ’80s influenced poster.

Day Forty-Two - Hernando de Soto’s The Mystery of Capitalism

I like this jacket a lot but it really needs a few more hours work to really make it “pop” (I hate that phrase). I’m happy with the concept though, even if the execution seems a little under-developed.

Day Forty-Three - Robert Atkins’ Dr Atkins’s New Diet Revolution

I was more pleased with myself than I had any right to be when I came up with this cover. Maybe the typography needs a few tweaks or changes but overall I’m happy with the way this jacket turned out.

Day Forty-Four - Nassim Taleb’s The Black Swan

When I found this illustration I knew I had to use it on this cover and, despite being pleased with the finished cover, I felt a little dishonest when a friend assumed I’d drawn it myself. I did give credit on the original post though so I do think I did my bit… right?

Day Forty-Five - B. F. Skinner’s Beyond Freedom and Dignity

I like the isolated atmosphere in this design and the typography works for me although part of me feels as though the cover copy isn’t as prominent as it deserves to be.

Day Forty-Six - Harold Kushner’s When Bad Things Happen to Good People

This was a silly and quickly thrown together cover thanks to time restraints. I was worried it might seem a little disrespectful but nobody has complained thus far. Given more time I’d tidy the whole thing up but I’m not really sold enough on the idea to develop it much further.

Day Forty-Seven - Roger Penrose’s The Emperor’s New Mind

I know this is just taking an image and laying out some text over the top corner, but I’m very happy with this cover and more development went into it than you might think. I couldn’t get the image of a llama out my head the entire time.

Day Forty-Eight - Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel

Nope, looking back not this cover is awkward and badly laid out. Maybe my least favourite of the bunch.

Day Forty-Nine - Richard Dawkins’s The God Delusion

I genuinely stressed over this cover for the first 48 days. I knew there must be something interesting I could do with the book but just couldn’t work anything out. In the end I’m really pleased with the final design but still doubt it reached its full potential.

Day Fifty - J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series

I wanted to mark the occasion on Day 50 and a series of seven covers seemed an appropriate way to do so. Unfortunately the extra six covers meant the designs couldn’t be too complex and because I’ve always admired the work of Berthold Wolpe I thought I’d seize the opportunity to pay tribute to the old Faber & Faber covers. The covers have an aesthetic of old flags which seems strangely fitting for the Potter books with The Goblet of Fire being my personal favourite here. The Deathly Hallows doesn’t seem to work quite as well I’d hoped it would though.

Well, I’ve tried to justify all 56 covers on here now and I’d like to think at least one or two people enjoyed hearing about the thought process behind the designs, I know I tend to find it an interested read when coming from other book designers.

The general consensus from the project has been that the jackets I illustrated and hand drew myself were the strongest of the lot which is not a bad bit of feedback to hear at all. If nothing else the project has helped me narrow down my own strengths and style a little more while still experimenting with new ideas and concepts. Although it undeniably had its ups and downs I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out in the end.

Day Thirty-One - Toni Morrison’s Beloved

Other people seem to like this cover more than I do and I’m not one to argue. The illustration seems to win them over but I’m still not sold on the type despite the sickening length of time I spent fiddling with it.

Day Thirty-Two - Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

I knew I wanted to use the Don’t Panic motif for this book but I couldn’t quite decide how considering that it has been done before. In the end I decided to play on a classically British design for a classic British book (which I’m ashamed to say I haven’t actually read).

Day Thirty-Three - Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird

I’ve always liked the image of Atticus Finch’s dark and looming house from the book and when I got this idea I dove straight in with the pen. It could have benefitted from having a few more hours work but given the nature of the project it was given all the time I could afford. I’d love to develop this cover further one day.

Day Thirty-Four - Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged

This cover took quite a lot of work, from coming up with the original concept to making the text seem realistically in line with the skyscraper. It’s a cover I still look back on with a wee bit of pride though so I’m glad I took the time.

Day Thirty-Five - Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose

I knew Umberto Eco needed a rather sophisticated and classy cover and, although I’m not hugely familiar with this particular book, I’d like to think I nailed it. Looking back though, maybe the typography needs to stand out a little more.

Day Thirty-Six - Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago

Given more time, I’d have preferred to put together an image like this myself rather than manipulate an old Soviet poster but the jacket still works for me.

Day Thirty-Seven - Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation

This was a pretty silly idea that got out of hand. I spent hours in Photoshop trying to put the image together then scoured the internet for a respectable diner style font. I’m not too happy with the final result anymore if I’m being honest, it seem rather cheap or half-finished.

Day Thirty-Eight - Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning

I purposefully tried something different (for me at least) with the typography here and I’m still undecided on the finished jacket. Its certainly not the worst of the covers but it would struggle to make it into the highlights (if any).

Day Thirty-Nine - E. O. Wilson’s Sociobiology

I hate to sound like a broken record, but this is another cover I love but would have preferred to illustrate myself if it wasn’t for time constraints. To quote myself,”maybe I’ll develop it further in the future”.

Day Forty - Amartya Sen’s Resources, Values and Development

This was a fairly simple and easy cover to put together and I’m pretty sure it fits the book to a respectable degree. I can’t decide if it looks a little amateurish or delightfully understated.

I’m not making any promises about when I’ll get the fifth and final post up but I reckon it’ll be done by the end of the week, maybe even tomorrow. Who knows?

Day Twenty-One - National Commission on Terrorist Attacks’ The 9/11 Commission Report

I knew I wanted to use this image for the cover but really wasn’t sure how well text would sit with it. There was a surprising amount of tweaking and rotating and scaling involved with such a simple cover but in the end I reckon it was worth the effort, I still look back at this one rather fondly.

Day Twenty-Two - Michael Behe’s Darwin’s Black Box

I’m not sure if this jacket is quite as effective as I’d hoped it would be but when I got that image of Charles popping his head out a cardboard box I knew I had to follow through. Literal yes but I’d also like to think it has a sense of humour, a very important trait in book design.

Day Twenty-Three - Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind

I hate this cover now; the concept is still interesting but it needs a lot more work to do it justice. Unfortunately it was designed right in the middle of an 18 or so hour work day and really suffers from it. Can’t win them all I suppose.

Day Twenty-Four - Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

This cover came from an early development of The Feminine Mystique from Day Nine and even though I’m not too confident about how well it suits the book I still like the design.

Day Twenty-Five - Joseph Heller’s Catch-22

I was happy to mark the half-way point of the project with this cover. I have had some great feedback from it too which make it all the sweeter. I knew I wanted to use the infinity symbol on the cover somewhere but it wasn’t until I sat down to design this jacket on the day that I came up with this concept.

Day Twenty-Six - James D. Watson’s The Double Helix

Maybe this cover is a little to literal and I have been called up on it, which I accept. That said, I found the double helix very satisfying to illustrate and my inner child enjoyed colouring it in.

Day Twenty-Seven - Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart 

This was a rather time consuming cover but I’m really pleased with how it turned out. If I’d had even more time I might have tried to harmonise the colours a little better but I’m more than happy with it as is.

Day Twenty-Eight - Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care

Sadly this was another rushed cover that I really feel could have benefitted from a little more development. The concept does have legs though and I might revisit it in the future.

Day Twenty-Nine - Ralph Nader’s Unsafe at Any Speed

I wish I could take more credit for this image but when it makes for a cover as great as this I’m glad I chose it. The visual metaphor and the nice clean typography make this one of my favourite covers from the 50 days.

Day Thirty - Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses

I hummed and hawed over this cover for a long time; I was even advised to skip this book considering the controversy it created for the author upon its publication. Not one to give up, I decided to go for a simple and hopefully inoffensive cover although I’m not sure how satisfied I am with the final result.

Right-oh, the fourth part should be up over the weekend. Try to hold on until then.

Day Eleven - Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence

I had wanted to do a mind-map cover for a while and this book seemed to fit the concept. I’d still consider using the idea in the future too, although perhaps with a more intricate and detailed image.

Day Twelve - Mao Tse-tung’s The Little Red Book aka Quotations From Chairman Mao

Looking back, this cover seems a little too simple even if it does work. I was tempted to try something a but different with the colour pallet but decided against it. “The Little Red Book” is a rather restrictive title.

Day Thirteen - Rick Warren’s The Purpose Driven Life

I got a bit of criticism for this cover, perhaps the type doesn’t seem to pop enough or contrast significantly with the background image, but I still like it. In my mind I pictured the finished article with spot varnish over the text which might have helped.

Day Fourteen - Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time

Although this works better in concept than it does in execution, I have always loved drawing in biro. Given more time I really think I could have made a better job of this cover but that is the nature of the project. Maybe that makes it more of a comp than a finished cover?

Day Fifteen - Muhammad Yunus’ Banker to the Poor

I was chuffed when I stumbled upon the Monopoly Guy idea for this cover but again, it felt a little rushed. The crooked top half seems slightly off and the red line could use a little tidying up.

Day Sixteen - Alasdair McIntyre’s After Virtue

Some of the best feedback I got from the project came from this jacket and, if I’m being honest, I can see why. Hand lettered text like this really seems to be my forté, assuming I have one. At first I was slightly disappointed at only being able to find a grainy, low-res image of the blindfolded statue but now I reckon it really help the overall aesthetic of the cover.

Day Seventeen - Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude

If I had known at the time that this book was the subject of this year’s Penguin Design Award then maybe I’d have made more of a fuss over the design although I do look back on this entry quite positively. I barely holds a candle to some of these though.

Day Eighteen - Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

The background texture on this cover still works for me but if I was to go back I’d likely make a couple of changes to the type. The author’s name in particular doesn’t quite work for me anymore.

Day Nineteen - Alex Haley’s Roots

As soon as I saw this print, by my wonderful and talented girlfriend, I knew it had great book cover potential. Then when I realised I would be designing a cover for a book called “Roots” during the project the stage was set. It’s nice how things just come together sometimes.

Day Twenty – Noam Chomsky’s Syntactic Structures

I know I wanted to have a go at a horizontal cover at least once or twice during the project and this was my first attempt. Again, more time and maybe it would have turned out better but it was strangely satisfying to illustrate.

If the last couple of days have been any indication then the next instalment of this saga might be up before the weekend is through. Who’d have guessed I’d ever be proactive in updating this thing?

That is the purpose of this blog post, and the four that will follow it. I’d like to get back into the habit of updating this thing and with a few other new projects on the horizon, hopefully it might start to happen. Now, here are the first ten jackets of 50/50.

Day One - Jane Goodall’s In the Shadow of Man

I wanted to kick off the project with a hand drawn cover and like the potential of this book. The colours and simple illustration are intended to reflect the simplicity of Ms. Goodall’s way of living and the look between them is to show the connection she shared with the chimps.

Day Two - John Rawls’ A Theory of Justice

This is a pretty cheesy cover which I somewhat intentionally hammed up with the drop shadow effect and colour scheme. I liked the over-the-top idea of Superman representing justice and, although it wasn’t greatly received by people who have offered me feedback, I’m still fond of its sense of humour.

Day Three - Dee Brown’s Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee

I got a lot of praise for this cover and I’m not surprised, I’m still a big fan of that pattern and the warm colour scheme. If given more time to work on this idea I’d love to try and come up with a similar pattern of my own, maybe one day.

Day Four - Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

If you’re aware of the book (which most people by this point are) then this cover should speak for itself. It came together pretty swiftly and is still one of my favourites from the entire project.

Day Five - Milton Friedman’s Capitalism and Freedom

This cover was a little more time consuming but surprisingly I seemed to spend more time deciding where to place the text in conjunction with the stripes than Photoshopping dollar signs in place of the stars. Overall I’m glad I spent a bit of time on it this cover, it seems a little more conservative than my usual style but it never hurts to try something different.

Day Six - Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People

This cover seems to be more popular to other people than it is to me. I’ve had a nice amount of praise from this which makes the stressful afternoon of drawing and scanning and redrawing and rescanning all seem worthwhile. Who would have guessed that it worth putting in that wee bit of extra effort?

Day Seven - Carl Sagan’s Cosmos

This was an idea I’d had in my head for a wee while and even though I couldn’t get my hands on a decent quality version of the image I originally had in mind it turned out pretty well. It might have work out better sans author’s name but I’m still happy with how I managed to use Avant Garde to a respectable level, I’m usually not a big fan.

Day Eight - Malcolm X’s The Autobiography of Malcolm X

Form the depth in the layers to the left leaning text which “goes against the grain” this might be my personal favourite.

Day Nine - Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

This cover took a lot of work and was the first to have multiple developments, one of which was recycled onto a cover later in the project. I’m sure the cover turned out much better as a result, however I’d still have liked the title to be a little more prominent.

Day Ten - Abdul Rahman Munif’s Cities of Salt

As soon as I saw that photograph I knew I had my cover image. I opted for a fairly clean and simple layout to help the rig stand out just that wee bit more. It’s another of my favourites that seemed to come together pretty quickly.

That’s pretty much it for the first post. Unless you’re an idiot you’ll have worked out there are going to be another four of these so I’ll try and get part two up within the next week, don’t want to stretch this out for too long.

I first for the idea for the project a few months back when AIGA quietly retired their near century old design competition 50 Books/50 Covers. The competition was brought back after the success of the Save 50/50 petition which garnered an impressive 1285 signatures. This inspired me to bite the bullet and undertake such a mammoth project. It should be challenge, but a might fun one.

My own self imposed rules for the project are as follows:

• Each cover will be for a book from the 50 Most Influential Books of the Last 50 (or so) Years list by SuperScholar.
• I am going to allow myself few sketches and notes prior to the 50 days beginning. This simply makes the project a little more manageable, considering I have other projects and a full time job.
• Every cover will be create within the 50 day period. I might design a couple one day if I get the chance, but I won’t be opening Illustrator until the day I plan to post the first jacket.
• It will be the front cover only I’m afraid. I often. find the most time consuming part of designing full jackets is the amount of copy involved. I’d rather spend the limited time I have for each cover perfecting the kerning than typing up testimonials
• Although I do plan to use some of my own illustrations or photographs I will likely also source other images from time to time. Full credit will always be given of course.

So there you have it. My next (nearly) two months will be dedicated to this. I’ll try to keep this blog updated throughout the project to let you all know how its going. I’m hoping to post the first cover either later tonight or tomorrow (with the latter being more likely) which should bring my final post in at around the 22nd June. Lets hope the weather that day justifies sitting outside with a hopefully well deserved pint of ale.

Wish me luck.

I got to work on two projects while I was there. One was some initial concepts and brainstorming for a “secret” project. To be honest I’m not really sure how secret it is, but I’m not saying anymore just in case.

The logo you see atop this paragraph was my first project.

The idea was to create and brand a new seafood restaurant in Leith, an area famous for its food and fish. After researching the local area I opted for something the town was lacking, a sushi restaurant, and set about creating an identity which used the more traditional aspects of Japanese culture over the cartoon-like, manga influenced visuals of YO! Sushi.

The name Kishi comes from the Japanese word for “shore” and the symbol in the logo is the Japanese glyph for the word. Oh, and incase anyone hasn’t noticed I gave it that jaunty angle to create the illusion of chopsticks. See what I did there?

I then moved on to expanding the brand. Because the idea is to create a slightly more traditional and sophisticated establishment to popular sushi bars I looked into how I could put the culture across in an authentic way. Origami was an obvious choice.

This little business card/with compliments slip was just one little promotional item I came up with but I think it works. Imagine if every visit you received a different origami animal with your bill. Like a Pokémon-style collect ‘em all type of deal.

On the first day I was sent out with a camera to take some photos of local businesses for research purposes. When I got back and started creating my mark I decided the best suited exterior to my chosen theme was the Michelin starred The Kitchin. As a final little cherry on top of the project I dived deep into Photoshop to mockup how the place might look from the outside.

I also came up with posters and other promotional items for the brand, which you can see here. It was a fun wee project while it lasted and added some valuable industry experience to my CV along with branding to my portfolio.

heiwa auto.

Between staying with my wonderfully hospitable great aunt and uncle I travelled to London to attend the Confex exhibition while working also working on little bits and pieces for The Association for Conferences and Events website.

You see those little icons? They were all me. It was a nice wee project to fill an afternoon and getting them online and active was a great way to get to grips with Joomla as a CMS. You can see them in all their fully functioning glory on the ACE site.

After a bit of photo manipulation, I then moved on to developing the new site for Sterling Printing Company, also using Joomla, based on designs by Kate (the companies Creative Director) which was pretty full on but it was fun to get my hands dirty with some coding for once.

Overall, it was a productive and beneficial week with a company I’d be keen to work with again in the future. Here’s hoping.

Simply click the image to see it in higher resolution.

I was originally set to take over from another illustrator who had given the books a very sloppy and cartoon-like look which I really was not a fan of. I decided to turn everything on its head and go for a more classical aesthetic, but maybe I’m being selfish? Maybe it won’t appeal to a young audience in the same way it does to me? Can five-year-olds really get excited about Bodoni? Please tell me, it’s the only way I’ll learn.

When I first discovered the target demographic for the film (18-24 year olds) and the premise (a character drama) my initial reaction was to compare it to the likes of Juno and Hallam Foe. The defining feature of these films identities, along with countless others, is hand drawn text. Luckily I like to consider this one of my key strengths and set about working on a basic concept.

The frame idea popped into my head as I was drifting off to sleep one night and the next morning I ran with it. I wanted an interesting way to encompass the ensemble cast into the design while still reflecting the concept of life. It was a long haul developing and sketching the frames, as well as editing and arranging the poster digitally but it all came together before the final deadline. The title text was a last minute change after I became rather disheartened with the cartoon-like typography I had previously employed.

I also tried the photographs in black and white, but wasn’t convinced.

Looking at the rest of the competition entries, I have some pretty stiff competition so I’ll be spending the next couple of weeks with my fingers crossed. As per, the main point of this post is to let people see my previous ideas and how I reacted to them. If you have any opinions on how the design could have been improved I’d appreciate the feedback.