Rationale Of My Final Design 

In order to produce my book cover two activities were essential. Firstly I needed to reed the book and have a thorough understanding of the major concepts; the plot and the characters. Secondly I needed to be fully aware of the theory of visual communication which we have covered this term in order to produce a book cover which was representative of the book and had the maximum possibility to engage a potential buyer/ reader because of the design of the cover.


I needed to consider semiotics which is conveying meaning through the use of symbols and is therefore a type of communication. I used this with the church and cross which is a signifier that conveys international symbol of Christianity. In terms of the book the cross and the church signified friendship, humanity, forgiveness and security which were all important themes in the story, however the fire with it’s knife like flames symbolised violence, chaos and death.

The choice of the orang/ yellow flames in one sense reflected the comfort and security of the church but as they are flames shown inside and outside of the church, they also represented danger and death. Colour is a powerful communication tool because humans take in about 70% of all information through their eyes. The use of warm comforting reds, yellows and oranges is in total contrast to the effect of fire destroying a building and burning human flesh.

I chose a grey as the colour of the church because this colour is often associated with the emotions of coldness and discomfort as it is an un inviting colour but i strongly think that the opposite is the case. This cold grey church was the place that offered love and protection whilst the warm tones of the fire represented danger and death, the opposite of what the viewer might first think.

I decided to use red for the text as red would represent the danger that some of the characters face in the story. Also by using red on the dark grey background, I thought it would stand out as the colours are in contrast with each other. Red could also represent blood in the story as Jonny stabs a Soc and Dallas gets shot by the police; both of these events contribute to the strong theme of danger throughout the book.

The font I used on my book cover was “Sansation” which is a san serif font, by using this font in bright red it would stand out at the top of the cover and on the dark grey background. This font is simple and effective similar to the fonts that had been used on the previous covers that were published. By using a san serif font there are no confusing flicks or curls in the text that would prevent the audience from reading the title making it clearly legible and fit for purpose.

I did not stick to a clear grid when creating my book cover but I took into consideration that readers of English text read from the top of a page in the left hand corner and across the page working their way down to the bottom right of the page. This is why I added the start of the title in the top left next to the Puffin book logo and made sure that although there is not much text on the page that the main image was in the centre of the front cover to maximise the space I have to use. I have also made sure that the background and the flames both go right to the edge of the cover so I have not left any blank white space which helps the theme of the book continue throughout the cover from front across the spine and the back cover.

After presenting my finished book cover and poster to the class i decided to make some changes to my final designs. first of all i took in to consideration that people found the red text placed on the dark grey background hard to read and so changed the main text on my cover from red to white and for the title i used red as a shadow effect. I also changed the font for the title on my book to “Baskerville” as this helped if fit better when being white. 

The second main change i made was to add an image of a gun to my back cover as this helped keep the  stile i used for the church on the fount cover, throughout the whole of my book cover. I placed the image of the gun just under the blurb on the back cover as this meant i had to move the text up and it would be easer to read placed on the dark background rather than left over the flames.

The final change i made to my book cover was to remove some of the flames as by having them in layers made the cover too bright and overpowering. once i had removed the back layers of flames i found that they looked more like flames rather than just orange and yellow shapes.