Type Only Covers

I was really excited to make some type only covers. I had a lot of ideas going into based on kerning and visually communicating the meaning of the words within the title. I began experimenting by focusing on one font (Futura) and all the different weights and style. I wanted to start physically so that I could quickly map some of my ideas out and then do some more developed digital work. I made a couple of responses to the title that focused on the word 'Everything' - I scattered the letters in order to make the word take up the most space, visually communicating the meaning. I then developed this by weaving the sub title through the letters, trying to visually communicate space. I also focused on some of the more obvious decisions - cropping the word short, shortening the world nearly etc. - I think that this is effective but perhaps too patronising and expected. 

For my digital developments of my 'Everything' idea I think that I was too literal in re-creating my small collage that was too limited. I wish that I would have gone even further with the idea, pushing it to the extreme. I think that a design like this should either be very simple, or very over the top - with the word everything filling up the entire front cover and spilling over the edged. It could be a lot simpler and a lot more effective. I think if I maybe tried to do this physically on the scanner on a larger scale it could work better also. I was finding doing digital work quite slow and struggling with grids and how it worked with the spine and the back cover etc. - I definitely want to go back and rework this idea by being more extreme with it. 

My second idea that I managed to develop in the study task was the hand written text. I liked the idea of putting more emphasis on 'Nearly' by having the start of the title being typed out in a strong font, and then stopping halfway through 'Everything' and then 'Nearly Everything' scribbled over it. I like the witty-ness that the word nearly gives the title and how it reflects the author's style of writing - and it would be interesting to reflect that. Again, I should have gone further with this idea but I was finding digital work to be slow. I think that this idea goes hand in hand with another one that I had about hi-jacking a notebook and making it look like a student's science work book or scientists notebook. I think that I need to stop working digitally on ideas from the very beginning as it limits me to what I can get done on Photoshop / Illustrator. This design would be a lot better if brought together through multiple physical elements. 

People in my crit seemed to like the style of design that I had developed for the covers, but didn't seem to grasp the ideas behind them. There were some issues with the "Everything" design as someone didn't understand why the word had been scattered, saying "make it mean something". I think that my justification for the idea is valid, but that it should be pushed further in order to be more understandable. I could really enlarge the word so it takes up most of the space on the cover and spills out onto the spine, or try and connect the letters using atom imagery. Furthermore, with the scribbling out idea, I should definitely develop the notebook idea, and include the full word so as to make it clearer.