Covers

My visual exploration into the front cover of my print handbook, I'm still refining and revising the content to fill the pages, I just wanted to have a stong sense of the design  to be able to fill in the gaps without worrying about the visual identity of the book.

I vectored a diagram of a Laser printer, A technical cross section of one to be precisce, just as an interesting visual to encorporate into the front cover (and maybe throughout the publication, using different technical imagery that concerns the printing process).

I like the idea of abstracting the image, for example here I've left the arrows that document the journey the paper takes throughout the printer, although the visuals could work (if enlarged slightly) It doesn't really immidiately say 'this book is about Print' (apart for the name!) to the reader, food for thought though...

Abstracting the image again but this time using all the elements in the diagram and spreading them across the page, completely untangling the working diagram and throwing it about the page. Alongside the title, I have left the names and terms of the components in amoungst the strokes and shapes.

2 Rather simple designs, but I do like the simplicity of the righthand side one here, and the 'dagger' glyphs that surround the title text in the middle of the page, giving the impression of trim marks. Although I wanted to stay away from using any print marks or CMYK related imagery on the front cover.

Back to the Laser printer cross-section image,  I spent a little time using the pathfinder tool to mash up the text and image together. I was quite happy with the result leving the text legible and the image still decipherable. On the right is another diagram of a letterpress block, all I have applied here is live trace over the image to leave it looking a bit sketchy and 'The Print Handbook' insdie. I think the visual I quite effective although it doesnt particulalry represent the area of print that this book is focusing on.

Working with simple line and shape to create, very minimal covers, I'm really drawn to liking the one on the right hand side here, ultimately simple but the offset angle could work really well on a printed publication, but seeing as the design is for web view only (PDF) I would like to have a slightly more interesting visual.

Bit of a juxtoposition here between these two, both I like for their individual qalities. There isn't much to say about the design on the left, although I belive the simplicity and the reference to Magenta works extremely well, it could do with a form of glyph or line above or below the text. Right of it is another collage-esque design further mashing 'THE PRINT HANDBOOK' and the Laser printer image together, I'm not too sure if this design is too cluttered opposed to some other designs, but it's still early days.

Just combining a few different ideas here, 'The print handbook' logo standing alone in the middle of the page (not centerd!) and a combination of a slightly adpated logo combined again with the lasr printer cross section, not particularly keen to use either of these designs.

Thinking about the design, more specifically the imagery used to illustrate the front cover, I'm pretty set on using a technical component of the print process, hence the printer diagram. I'm keen to further explore and ilustrate some more parts.