Penguin NW - Brief

Adult Fiction Cover Award

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

‘Evocative, entertaining, sexy and funny; but then Murakami is one of the best writers around’ Time Out

When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost twenty years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire – to a time when an impetuous young woman called Midori marched into his life and he had to choose between the future and the past.

‘Such is the exquisite, gossamer construction of Murakami’s writing that everything he chooses to describe trembles with symbolic possibility’ Guardian

‘This book is undeniably hip, full of student uprisings, free love, booze and 1960s’ pop, it’s also genuinely emotionally engaging, and describes the highs of adolescence as well as the lows’ Independent on Sunday

‘A heart-stoppingly moving story... Murakami is, without a doubt, one of the world’s finest novelists’ Herald

The cover used in the briefing notes was created in 2012 by Suzanne Dean, Creative Director at VINTAGE and illustrator and designer Noma Bar.

The Brief

Haruki Murakami’s books and stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally. His writing is vivid, dazzling, experimental and imaginative and your cover design should reflect this.

Try to get your hands on a copy of the book in order to get a sense of the writing, this will only help to inspire your design.

The story is well known both in celluloid and print so it is essential to come at it from a fresh angle. It should appeal to a contemporary, enquiring and literary readership.

Try to design a new cover for a new generation of readers, avoiding the obvious clichés. Originality is key.

Your cover design needs to include all the cover copy as supplied and be designed to the specified design template (B format, 198mm high x 129mm wide, spine 27 mm wide). Please refer to the Submissions Details page for full details of the spec and how to submit your entry.

Copyright must be cleared for all images used in your cover design and you must include a credit line on the back cover of your design for any third party images used. For example: ‘Cover photograph by Joe Bloggs’.

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 cover (front, back and spine) need to work together, remember that the front cover has to be able to work on its own, and to be eye-catching within a crowded bookshop setting as well as on screen at a reduced size for digital retailers.

The winning design will need to:

• have an imaginative concept
• be an original interpretation of the brief
• be competently executed with strong use of typography
• appeal to the broadest possible audience for the book
• show a good understanding of the marketplace
• have a point of difference from other books that it will be competing against in the market
• be able to sit on the shelves of a supermarket or ebook store as easily as it sits on those of more traditional bookshops

"I think as an illustrator, I often feel stuck in this middle ground between creating work that is very representational or figurative, versus work that is more graphic and design-led, and I felt like this project has really helped me work out how to navigate and combine both of those approaches."

- Harry Woodgate, winner of the Penguin Adult Non-Fiction Cover Award 2018

The Prizes

1st Prize

The winner of each category will be invited to spend four weeks in the Penguin Random House Design Studios on a work placement*, working on live briefs. The work placement will be paid at the current London Living Wage rate (subject to any applicable taxation) and the winner will also receive a cash prize of £1,000.

*Subject to agreeing terms in advance. Entrants must be eligible to work in the UK.

2nd Prize

The winner of the 2nd Prize will receive a £500 cash prize.

3rd Prize

The winner of the 3rd Prize will receive a £250 cash prize.

All the shortlisted entrants will be invited to an award ceremony where the winners will be announced, and at which an exhibition of all the shortlisted designs will be on display.

Judges

Suzanne Dean – Art Director, Vintage

Suzanne graduated from Kingston University, where she studied Graphic Design. Her first job was at The Greenhouse, designing food packaging and brochures. A year later she was asked if she might be interested in publishing. She joined Penguin Books as a Senior Designer, working for Hamish Hamilton. Three years later she joined Macmillan, to work on the Picador list. Five years later she joined Random House as Art Director for Vintage Books, whose many imprints include Jonathan Cape, Chatto & Windus and Harvill Secker. Here she established the design for the Vintage Classics list. She has worked on a wide range of cover designs for authors such as Mark Haddon, Haruki Murakami, Ian McEwan, Julian Barnes, Yuval Noah Harari, Richard Flanagan and Rachel Kushner.

I found an interview with Suzanne Dean about her idea of good cover design. Dean was responsible for the Vintage logo update and some of her cover design work has been for Haruki Murakami - author of Norwegian Woods. She suggests that it is important to break your own rues, but in a thought out way just as she did by adding colour to Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki. She says that someone will be convinced to buy a physical book rather than an online one if you make it beautiful and desirable collectable objects.

A cover that hints at the contents receives better reception than one which spells out too heavily. A key theme that seems to be present in the way that Dean designs is the idea of keeping something relevant, but also intricately suiting their contents, not just to our times but to all times. You must experiment, and engage with all forms of media.

Richard Ogle – Art Director, Transworld

Richard graduated from the University of Central Lancashire with a Graphic Design degree. He was drawn into publishing through book cover design agency The Senate and has never looked back. He became Art Director at Transworld Publishing, within Penguin Random House, in 2015. He was previously Art Director at Cornerstone, also in the PRH Group, for thirteen years. He has also worked at Pan Macmillan as Associate Art Director, and Headline Books as a Senior Designer

Over the years he has worked on a range of cover designs for books, in all genres, including novels by John Grisham, Kate Atkinson, James Herbert, Paula Hawkins, James Patterson, Shari Lapena, Wilbur Smith, P.G. Wodehouse, Lisa Jewell, Sophie Kinsella and Douglas Coupland, plus autobiographies by Peter Kay, Tony Blair, David Jason, Rod Stewart, Steve Coogan and John Cleese.

Redesigning existing titles is something that is an important part of his role as an Art Director. He says that each redesign has its own challenges and requirements but, as a designer, the main thing that can be offered is the interpretation of a book. The design must distill your own vision rather than simply taking briefs at face value and supplying exactly what is expected from you.

The cover designs for Anna quindlen were all based on the use of one symbolic object that illustrates the narrative of the book. The designs are made up of a mixture of commissioned photography, stock imagery, CGI/Photoshop and also commissioned calligraphy.

Jason Smith – Art Director, Cornerstone

After graduating from the University of Derby with a BA Honours in Graphic Design, Jason moved to London to further his education at Central Saint Martins. He began his career working for a company which specialized in packaging for CDs and DVDs, combining his passion for music and film with design.

The move into publishing was a natural progression and he secured a job at Random House as designer, quickly followed by a more senior role. As Art Director of Cornerstone, Jason works on a list of successful authors including James Patterson, Helen Dunmore, Tony Parsons, Tim Peake and Katie Price to name a few.

‘I loved this design from the first time I saw it. Very abstract with a fantastic colour palette. A worthy winner’ Jason Smith – Art Director, Cornerstone

‘This design has come on leaps and bounds over the course of the different stages of the competition. I can really see this sitting on the bookshelves in store. A great design’ Jason Smith – Art Director, Cornerstone

‘Great use of type, the design really draws you in’ Jason Smith – Art Director, Cornerstone

Artisan Drinks - Chosen concept

Based upon feedback and my own opinion I have chosen to develop the concept with the tagline 'Lifting your spirits' as the idea for the brand campaign. 

I will need to decide on whether the ad is focusing on giving out compliments or suggesting small activities or acts of kindness that could essentially 'lift the spirits' of the audience.

To research: 
- existing positivity campaigns
- mirror based installations 
- complimenting other people 
- execution of the campaign e.g. beer mats, outdoor campaigns, print ads
- finalising the concept to match brand values
- research how copy focused ads are laid out and logos are added

Artisan Drinks - Feedback

I held a small group crit with my peers so that I could get some feedback on the initial concepts and get a better understanding of what was/wasn't working. I gave a small overview of the brand and then quickly explained the concepts to them because some of the different tag lines fell under the same concept idea. 

Lifting your spirits / compliment well 

• don’t want it to be so obvious, but it needs to be so that the audience can take something from it and get their attention instantly grabbed 
• compliments work better than the activity suggestions
• maybe bring in the Australian and english slang as a way of sticking to the history of the brand - developing on phrases such as "you are the bee's knee's"
• look at the incorporation of a mirror as a small element that could compliment the campaign 
• as a combined concept this could work really well and the tagline of ‘lifting your spirits’ is much stronger than ‘complimenting well’ it has more of a pun in it and relates well to the mixer and alcoholic spirit combination, but also the purpose of a social situation

• concept: why socialise? why drink? why use artisan rather than normal? lifts your spirits, feel more confident, enjoy yourself, feel good, etc. all really work well together to drive the concept to be strong

Leave the mixing to us 

• strong concept, but the copy needs to be stronger 
• maybe only those from London would understand the concept as it is not a word used in all parts of the UK
• the idea of mixing weird food combinations makes sense, but this may cause the audience to focus on food when it is a drinks product so would not end up being a very effective campaign

Personality/characteristic

• work on what is being said more for this so that people read it as a human and then it is actually about the drink 
• less focus on the description of the artwork and more on the actual flavours of the mixer - 'a great pair of heels' is not completely relevant or powerful
• personal element works well with this concept 

Artisan Drinks - Initial ideas

The perfect match 
The first idea that came to mind when thinking of mixing was the idea of 'the perfect match' and how really that is what you would want when s-ending money on an artisan mixer compared to a cheaper alternative. I looked at ho imagery alone with the strap line could work, but I don't think this had a strong enough concept in comparison to if there was more copy. Using the name Violet Blossom worked well in this case, but it may be hard to take this concept forward using the names of the other tonics as they are not as human. 

Lifting you spirts / Compliment well 

I started to think about when a mixer would be used and most commonly it would be in a social situation whether that is for business or pleasure. This then lead to the idea of how people want to feel when socialising and why they do it, they often do it to 'lift their spirits' and generally feel more positive and have a good time. The tag line 'Lifting your spirits' worked in two ways - the personal feeling and then the improving of the alcoholic spirits that the mixer would be used for. 

Personality / Characteristic traits 

Leave the mixing to us
I looked for some Australian and English words that I could maybe use as part of this mixing concept to grab the attention of the audience, but not explicitly be linked to the actual drinks themselves. Research has shown for this to be an effective way of making a memorable ad because it gets the audience questioning why it has a link and often because it doesn't it makes it stick in their memories. 

Artisan Drinks - Idea generation

I started the project by making a mind map (fig. 1) of everything that was relevant t the brief and what I may need to research and all of the initial ideas that came to my head straight away. 

I looked at: 

- Artisan quality

- Brand info 

- Ideas

- Competitors

One of the brainstorms lead to the idea that 'you wouldn't have it any other way' so I thought of looking at combinations that are famous and started with iconic duos. Figure 2 shows some of the ones that I could think of and as a creative advertisement this could work well to engage with the audience as they would all know the characters and then link it to the idea that there wouldn't be another mixer appropriate to use with alcohol other than the Artisan Drinks Company. 

The idea generation then progressed to the research into Australian vs. English phrases - leading to the compliments, perfect match etc. as initial ideas. Figures 3, 4 + 5 show the notes made as I did some research into the different routes that I could take. 

fig. 1

fig. 2

fig. 3

fig. 4

fig. 5

Artisan Drinks - Australian vs. English

As part of the research I had to look at Australian vs. English phrases so that I could develop the copy in an accurate manner.

Australian 
Ace: Just like in British slang, 'ace' is a compliment given to praise some achievement.
(To) Big-note oneself: To brag about yourself.
(Not My) Bowl of rice: Used in the same way as 'not my cup of tea'.
(To) Crank on to (Someone): To flirt with someone, to be romantically interested in someone.
Piece of piss: Same as 'piece of cake', but needlessly gross
Pom/Pohm/Pommy/Pommie: An Englishman. This is usually followed by 'bastard', which is a term of endearment in Australia.
Screamer: Someone who loves to party
Sheila: A woman
Spunk: Australians mean by 'spunk' what the Brits mean by 'cracking'―an attractive person of either sex.
Tall poppy: Someone who has succeeded, who has made the most of his life
Crikey, blimey: Euphemisms used to communicate amazement or surprise.
Beaut! or You beauty! Exclamation of delight.
Bonzer Good, a good thing.
Mate A sworn friend – one you’d do anything for – as essential as beer to the Australian stereotype.
"You're a spunky Sheila"

English

“I’m knackered!”: “I’m tired.” 

“I’m chuffed to bits!”: "I'm very pleased"

Golly gosh

"You're the bee's knee's" 

Better than a cuppa 

"You're fit" 

“Do you want to join us for a cheeky pint?”

"Bagsy"

"Bob's your uncle"

"Bog-standard"

Artisan Drinks - Existing

A lot of the social media content is based on the idea of 'why blend in, when you can stand out' as the main phrase of focus. This might be an idea to pursue with the campaign as it is something already heavily associated with the brand, but also it may be a bit too predictable.

In terms of designs, the brand has established a very bold and strong colour palette which can easily carry itself enough to be recognised by audiences. The way that previous advertising for this brand has been executed is with one bold colour as a background and then the sans serif typeface in a contrasting colour and to maybe highlight one particular part the typeface may be bold, italic or in a different colour.

In terms of the artwork, I think this would be an interesting part to take forward and incorporate as part of the branding campaign because it is different to other artisan drinks company and it is this part that brings the modern and more stylish side that Artisan Drinks Company is aiming for - different to the other competitors.