The Penguin Random House Student Design Award: Brief and interpretation

The brief:

To Kill A Mockingbird is a Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece of modern literature and was voted the most loved book of the last sixty years by The Times readers in October 2009. It has been translated into more than forty languages and has sold over thirty million copies worldwide. So no pressure.

We would like you to design a new and classic cover for this book. The trick here will be to come at it from a fresh perspective and to avoid repeating the obvious iconography from the many previous editions in print. If you can get your hands on a copy of the book in order to get a sense of the beautiful writing, this will only help to inspire your design. The cover should feel timeless and confident, and appeal to a whole new generation of readers.

Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy supplied and be designed to the specified design template – B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine width 20 mm, incorporating the ARROW branding and all additional elements such as the barcode.

What the judges are looking for:

We are looking for a striking cover design that is well executed, has an imaginative concept and clearly places the book for its market. While all elements of the jacket need to work together as a cohesive whole, remember that the front cover must be effective on its own and be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting. It also needs to be able to work on screen for digital retailers such as Amazon.

Interpretation:

There are 5 key things that the winning design will need to display in order for it to be considered successful and professionally executed. 

It needs to have an imaginative concept and original interpretation of the brief which implies that obvious imagery and common themes featured in the storyline should be avoided. The book cover should make the audience think in a new way about the storyline and the cover design shouldn't give too much of the storyline away. 

The design also needs to be competently executed with strong use of typography as the target audience do not need to rely on visual illustrations as a form of engagement, but prefer the challenging concepts that can be displayed in a number of subtle ways. 

The book cover design must also appeal to a contemporary readership which to me suggests that Penguin are looking for new approaches to book cover design and that old cliches should be avoided. 

It is also important for the cover design to show a good understanding of the marketplace, something that can be achieved by carrying out research into the target audience, other books of the same genre and what is successful within an actual book shop setting. 

The book design must have a point of difference from the many other book covers it is competing against. It will need to increase the number of people wanting to buy this book and avoid the use of imagery that has already been used before. To ensure that this is achieved, analysis of existing book covers would be necessary.