Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Design Evaluation


Everyone has heard the saying, "Don't Judge a book by it's cover." But let's just admit it right now we all have. They are the reason we pick a book off the shelf; it catches our eye, it looks interesting. I absolutely love to read, but one of my biggest pet peeves is when they release new renditions of book covers. I am not saying all renditions are bad, but at least 90% of the time they make me want to scream.
So, when deciding what to do to represent good and poor design my mind automatically went to book covers. For my design evaluation I chose to focus on The Lost Hero and it's graphic novel counterpart. Throughout this evaluation I will be comparing these two covers using principles we have learned in class.
 As I began to evaluate these two cover the first thing that popped out to me was the color. In the original the turquoise bluish-gray color contrast greatly with the gold/bronze dragon making it stand out even more. The color and background also create an intriguing aspect to the cover which make the reader want to know more. Through the use of line we also see the intricate details of the dragon as well as the roofs of the building. The contrast in size between the three characters and the dragon gives us perspective. The cover is also balanced symmetrically from the center creating a law of closure.
The graphic novel, however, is quite different. For one, there is little to no background, unless you are counting the dragon-monster-thing, I can't even tell what it is in this one. The colors are a dull bluish-gray and an orange-yellow, which don't really complement one another and really just bleh. The size of the characters has greatly increased and has become the main focal point of this cover. I honestly feel like the illustrators couldn't decide whether to draw the characters realistically or more cartoon like and ended up doing a combination of the two. Thus creating cartoons with way to many details and unnecessary shadows. This cover is balanced asymmetrically with the dragon-monster-thing on the left and the three characters on the right which gives us the law of proximity and similarity.
If I didn't know these were the same book (or if the titles were taken away) I would think they were telling two very different stories. The context is extremely different from one another. Gestalt's law of closure in the original cover helps us to believe the dragon and kids are working together as a team. The graphic novel, on the other hand, uses the laws of proximity and similarity to make us think they are either fighting the dragon, the dragon has turned against them or they are jumping into battle. 
Overall, I would say the original cover is a much better example of good design. I would have to agree with John Maeda that simplicity can go along way and is far better than a chaotic combination.