Clockwork orange development

Clockwork orange design process

Hand rendered type

Beginning the brief for Penguin book covers by creating hand rendered type using both Indian ink to draw with and also charcoal.

Penguin had requested for certain quotes to be found on the front and back cover of the book design, one of the quotes found on the back was the quote found below:

"What we were after was lashings of Ultraviolence"

Found to be a very powerful quote expressing the protagonist's love of violence and the way in which the character in the book would seek this out as part of the story.

Indian ink

charcoal

I interpreted these quotes to be very powerful and expressive of the film and book's story.

The execution to write out these quotes using both Indian ink and also charcoal was decided on knowing the grungy, almost filth impact that the outcome would result in.

The charcoal type effect related to the story in how Alex's family live a clean cut life in a very modern and sharp looking home, whilst he leaves that environment to find danger, filth and a messy existence. Living more of a manual extrovert, hands on existence rather than entertaining himself in his brain. An adrenaline fueled, thrill seeker lifestyle is conveyed by these selections of uppercase pieces of type which is very fitting to the story.

The choice to write these quotes out in upper case reflects the brash and bold scenarios the character chooses to enter whilst also complimenting the powerful use of the word 'ultraviolence'.

Penguin's book cover layout:

Experiment and alterations were made to find the most fitting location of this quote as Penguin had request this would be found on the back page of the book.

I began adjusting the size, scale and location of the type in an attempt to discover the most eye catching location as possible.

Knowing a certain amount of body copy along with a synopsis of the book was to be found on the back page I chose not to obstruct where this would be found.

Experiments with colour and strokes took place in illustrator to establish how much of an impact this type could have on the rear of the book.

Penguin had stated how the final design must make use of strong typography along with the ability to stand out amongst other books in a book shop, these were rules I fully intended to follow.

More experiment were to take place once I had created the remaining pieces of design for this book cover.
Title experiment:

A decision was made to create hand rendered type for the title and front cover of this book cover design. There was no need to follow the same theme as the type found on the rear of the book as this could have come across as being over powering and maybe even bland.

The choice was made to experiment with an original piece of type that has a particularly modern and futuristic aesthetic, also paying homage to the title found on the film posters.

This type design was then sketched up by hand scanned into illustrator and digitalised.

It required more refinement to gain that completed look but for the time being it was used to form an idea of the layout and where there was room for other artwork.

Combining the title piece with the large typography on the rear of the book gave an insight into how the final piece would look. It was important for me to remember the design wouldnt appear in this way as once the book was bound and folded, only one half of the design would be viewed at once.

Title page artwork design

Ideas were conjured of the style and type or artwork that were to be found on the front of the book cover. An idea involving iconic moment from the story to be pictured and shrunk down into icons was one of the first I chose to execute.

Knowing these finalised icons could be presented in such a way where they appeared to be following each other like the hands on a clock, the choice was made to determine the layout of the space on the front cover.

This was executed by simply creating lines representing the 12 hours on a clock, which would pay homage to the title 'A clockwork orange' whilst also giving away an idea of the plot.

Creating icons

Icons were thought of, sketched and designed that would represent iconic moments or features from the story.

moloko plus milk drink from the film and book

Cigarettes representing the character's lifestyle

Brains to indicate a warped mentality

A choice was made that these icons represented in this way wasn't communicating the intended message. The icons appeared too small and were confusing the layout and message of the title cover.

Other routes were explored using the previously designed icons.

Milk glass design

The splashing glass of milk represented chaos and also had strong connotations to childhood and how in this instance the protagonist's was living a very chaotic childhood/youth.

The choice was made to experiment with this symbol further to see how it could compliment the rest of the pieces and if it could make a fitting piece of artwork for the book cover.

Currently an orange and grey colour scheme was in place, orange representing obviously the title of the book, along with the chaotic, vibrant lifestyle and story, whilst great was complimenting the original colour nicely.

A problem arose in which to a viewer who didn't know the story, the glass looked more like orange juice than milk.