OUGD403 - Study Task 03 - Drawing the Detectives

For this task I took part in The Guardian’s 125^th birthday celebration of the author Agatha Christie and designed a book cover for a book written by her. I used my understanding of type and colour theory to design this book cover. The book I had to design a cover for was 'The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side'.

To begin with I read the plot line of my book to understand the story and then watched the Miss Marple television episode based on the book to try and find any recurring themes throughout the story. Once I had done this I made notes on any visual elements that I thought would work well on a cover.

This story is about an American actress who throws a party in her new home in the English countryside. At the party on of the guests dies which causes much confusion. To begin with it appears as though the actress was supposed to be poisoned but as Miss Marple investigates deeper it turns out that many people at the party might have wanted certain people dead, was it accidental?

So I decided to experiment with the extract of the poem where the title of the story comes from. I included a large quote that was used in the story and made the title a different colour to stand out.

After I did this I played with the cocktail element of the story, because of the way a character was poisoned through her drink. I illustrated a cocktail glass which’ shadow had been cracked which follows the theme of the mirror being ‘crack’d’. I also illustrated an olive in a pool of blood how a person would be if they were murdered to combine the connotations of cocktails and murder.

Then I focused on the cracked element and shattered part of the book title.

When thinking about colour I decided to use different kinds of green as this was the colour the publisher Penguin used on their mystery novels. I also experimented with the colour red as it danger and death.

I wanted to experiment with art deco era typography because the murder story is set in the mid 20^th century. The typefaces I looked at included Newport Classic, DIN and Josefin Sans. These fonts suit the style of the era and connote the 1930’s and 40’s.

I am pleased with the covers I produced as I managed to produce a variety within one days worth of work. I have focussed on type as well as the use of colour as I was briefed to do. I also wanted to focus on symbolism of key parts to the story. I feel I have used the appropriate connotations of mystery, murder and crime stories.