OUGD403 - Drawing the detectives

Guardian's Agatha Christie book design Competition -

The Agatha Christie book I have to redesign the cover for was 'Mrs Mcginty's Dead' a crime novel based around her famous detective Hercule Poirot. This was a competition from the news paper 'The Guardian' which had no restrictions to what could or couldn't be included in the design. 

I began by looking at previous covers for 'Mrs Mcginty's dead' and what was included on these, type, colour and image used. All of the covers used have type as a focus point, they are clear and straight to the point, otherwise they would not sell well as they would be unrecognisable. All of these covers can be related to crime or death through use of imagery and colour, using blood reds and dark colours to emphasise the genre of the novel.  The type changes under every publication but all keep to a menacing or crime style of type, also the imagery is always different to the other, the most successful of the ones above I feel are the more simpler versions with type and just a subtle image to go with it.

I looked at the plot of the story and picked out key things in the book which are significant such as:

• News paper clipping
• Ink
• Sugar Hammer
• blood
• News paper articles
• cleaning
• old
• moustache

With this information I can try choose the type, colours and imagery, I want to make a simple relevant cover for the book.

I looked at different types I could use, hoping to find some which would work as a stand out type that represented the genre. I went through the types I had at my disposal to begin with and found these which I thought would work.

Having looked at these types I decided to then look at colours before I began experimenting further, I considered elements from the book and also the previous book covers which would influence my colours.

The First colour is a Off white which is to represent the news paper clipping which is referenced within the book, it plays a key role throughout the story. News papers of the time would be printed on off white paper. The red is to represent blood drops which represents the murder, the most significant murder of the book, where Mrs Mcginty is murdered using a sugar hammer which would cause blood splatter. The black is to represent the pot of Ink, which is another key object within the novel, it is a key clue to the investigation and has also been a cover image in some other of the cover designs which I have looked at.

I wanted to create some small symbol imagery to represent ink spat/drop and blood splat or drops. I didnt want an over bearing image to take over my cover design I started with the splat symbol on Illustrator. This gave the ink splat and blood splat form which, when applied with the correct colour, could represent ink and blood.

With the type I began with 2 of the types I looked at which were Din Condensed and Helvetica, I wanted to start with simpe striking types to see if they could work, I made the kerning on these types tighter to create a stronger form. I Used Helvetica Light and Helvetica Bold which when used in this context gave different feels.

I attempted the book title with these types but chose to attempt this in blood red to differentiate from the Authors name which would be black and a big focus point. 

I then put all these elements together to start forming some designs. 

In these designs I went for a simpler hand rendered symbol, which was small circular shapes formed to represent the blood splatter and Ink drops.

I continued to experiment with the type changing layout and the type itself, still using the same colours and symbols but trying to develop these designs further to get the correct feel.

I narrowed my choices down to these selections which I felt strongest. Having gotten feedback through social media the choices were cut down again to the bottom left and top right down which were said to be strongest and most effective.

Personally I feel the bottom left is strongest, the layout of the symbols keeps the type clear and the layout of the type is strong and successful this is the piece I will submit to the competition.

Entry on the Guardian