In Cold Blood - Final Design + Submission

PENGUIN - IN COLD BLOOD FINAL 

The final design for the cover is a combination of screen print, collage and digitally added type. The background is a screen print of a photograph, which was taken from the case file images of the murder which the book is based on. The photograph is of the drive way leading up to the house of the victims, it was taken to show a tyre mark which was left by the culprits as they fled. The eerie black and white image was bitmapped using Photoshop to create a negative for a screen print, the prints that were produced relayed the darkness and roughness that was wanted. The print for the final design was a misprinted outcome which did not get the full image printed, through peer feedback and analysis, the response to it was positive and was chosen out of a number of other prints, which were better printed. The misprint creates a sense of eeriness, as if the image was once nice and clean of a house on a street, though now it is warn and ruined as if something dark has occurred. 

On top of this print lays the cut out image of the victims house, where the murders took place. The choice to collage this was through inspiration taken from research which looked at other cover designs not just for 'In Cold Blood' but also in other crime novel covers. The photo acts as a clean layer on a rough background, making it stand out on the cover. The image is taken from a shot of the house taken just after the murders and has been cut out and tested on the hand drawn experimentations. The type used is Baskerville Bold Italic, this design choice was made through looking at Crime/Horror novel typefaces, looking at penguin covers and 80's style crime novel covers, all of which often used a bold serif type face, and often oblique or italic, to create a 'thriller' style. The type is laid in the white space of the misprint image, in a Romek Marber style grid system which has the author and title on one side and the cover tagline on the other side, again this is inspired through my research.

The cover fully meets the concept which was set at the beginning of the brief, keeping to a dark, old style Penguin crime novel and using tradition print and image making techniques. It also remains relevant to the story and facts of the story.