3D collage book covers and Marber grid

Today we looked at a classic Penguin cover layout, the Marber grid. I started by recreating the grid from estudio using the recommended method and then progressed to working with a mixture of designs I had made on excel for the holiday tasks and scanned in illustrations from Bruno Munari's 'Art as Design'. I found the uptake on the first day back very slow and I only managed to produce one cover my the silent crit at the end of the day. I started with Munari's book due to its already existing range of visual imagery and the idea of creating something inspired by his useless machines. I find the useless machines very striking as pieces of art and did find some links between them and the shapes used in Paul Klees cubist paintings. I wanted to create a 3D piece that involves multiple elements suspended in the air in some way. To do this as an initial step I printed and photocopied imagery and then attached the paper to a plastic coated metal wire. The results were an interesting installation that played with depths of field as well as giving a feeling of continuation within multiple elements, a theme that links to my stories well.

This was the final cover I produced. I feel the minimal aesthetic with a fairly muted pallet fits the book well. The suspended three dimensional manner of the objects gives an organic feel that doesn't look overly structured, a reflection of the casual muse like nature of the books content. The back cover then juxtaposes the layout of the front with a regimented 2D design that was a bit of an after thought. I will look to developed the back cover and spine in greater detail as well as completing the set in this style.


There was a silent crit at the end of today in which I received a few opinions on the cover I produced. There were a few comments made on the imagery used with it being described as bold and impactful but doubts were raised on how clear it is as to what the imagery represents. I think with a book such as Munaris however its never going to be possible to sum up the contents via cover imagery alone. A suggestion was made that the back cover should have more continuity with the front and perhaps continuing the blue wire line might look better. However another commenter seemed to like the back saying the fact its muted and doesn't draw the eye is effective. It was also suggested I make my own grid using the directional nature of the front image, an area I would like to explore.