Covered: Crit

This is my current book cover design which I showed at the crit. The concept behind it is to reflect both how Nietzsche and Christianity refers to Christians as sheep, in Nietzsche's case he speaks about a herd mentality. He argues Christians have a heard mentality where they are docile, they follow rather than lead. Christians also see themselves as sheep but sheep in the Bible are seen as God's chosen people. The contrast in how they both view sheep has created an interesting dynamic.

The crit itself wasn't actually that useful, however afterwards I spoke to Danny and he suggested a few different ideas to try.

• The sheep all in white
This would make the pattern more solid as well as being a lot easier to screenprint. Danny made a good point that the type and pattern does look like a classic design, something which I quite like. However making the sheep solid white would contrast the traditional type and create more of a contemporary cover. The contrast of a contemporary cover and traditional type would reflect the classic book whilst updating it and making it more appropriate for an new younger audience.

• Diagonal
Perhaps trying the sheep pattern at a diagonal would add a new interesting element rather that the rigid grid. This is something I will definitely try however I question how this will work with the type, it might look disjointed.

•Frame
By removing the outer lines of sheep and leaving a green frame it would help to make the page less crammed and would also look better than the sheep going over the page.

• Change in Direction
The sheep could alter which way they go so each line is different ie left, right, left, right. This could create rivers through the design which would help to break up the grid and add more movement to the design.

As Danny suggested I made all the sheep a solid white. However this hasn't worked as well as I was hoping. They are no longer recognisable as sheep but rather look like white blobs. From a distance they create the dog tooth pattern, although this is cool its not what I wanted.

Keeping the sheep white and removing the outer frame again looks odd. I think its because the strip containing the text continues past the sheep, plus the shade of green is quite a gross shade without the sheep to cover it. It suddenly looks bold and frames the work rather than creating a pattern.

Turning the sheep to an angle created quite an interesting affect. Perhaps this is something to explore more. It makes the sheep into more of a pattern compared to just in a neat line.