Form and Function Part 2: Ex 4 Designing a cover

 

Following on from the discussion of George Orwell’s novel 1984, look at the
covers for Margaret Atwood’s equally dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale
(1985), in which a woman finds herself surviving inside a harsh American
fundamentalist society, that sees women’s roles as subservient cooks, matrons,
and mothers. Alternatively, you can pick a different book to respond to, but it
needs to be one with more than one cover design, so avoid recently published
books.
Are there key conceptual motifs being used over and over again within different
cover treatments? Can you identify more expressive versions of the covers?
Check the date of each version and try to speculate about the historical, political
or social context for each one. (Don’t spend long on this but it’s important to
realise that creative design doesn’t happen in a vacuum.)
Using one of the main motifs you have identified (such as the uniforms that
feature the book), the title of the book, author’s name, and no more than three
colours (including black and white), generate as many different layouts of the
cover design as you can. Think about how you can dynamically layer, organise,
frame, clash, or balance these elements. Work quickly and come up with lots of
different visual possibilities.

 

Focusing on The Handmaids Tale cover designs, I found a helpful timeline of the cover changes made throughout the years up until now. 

Post, T.P. (2022). The Cover Evolution of The Handmaid’s Tale. [online] The Publishing Post. Available at: https://www.thepublishingpost.com/post/the-cover-evolution-of-the-handmaid-s-tale.

All editions https://www.goodreads.com/work/editions/1119185-the-handmaid-s-tale
Key conceptual motifs I have identified are:

 
•    The title 'Handmaids Tale' and the authors name Margret Atwood which are very necessary for a reader when establishing what the book is an who wrote it.
•    The colour red is another, this related to the uniforms of the Handmaids in the book.
•    In the later designers the uniform becomes more of the focus as well as the white face covering bonnet they have to wear to.  
•    Two of the covers have a wall on them, this showcases the nature of the story as the handmaids cannot leave 'Gilead'.
•    Flowers, branches, trees to symbolize new life
I have discovered that two of these covers are a lot more expressive than the others.
 
The original 1985 cover
 

This cover has a very abstract style but it still symbolizes a part of the story such as a women, child and man behind possibly as a way to represent the power dynamic. The image is made up with pieces from different art styles and face or body pieces like a collage.
 

The 1986 features a tall wall and the handmaids in a line walking. The reason for the design and use of the wall I feel is to show how they’re trapped and the scale of the wall isn’t escapable. It is better said from the website at the top of this post. "The image is striking in its composition, with the majority of the space filled with “The Wall” (which is a significant symbol in Gilead where ‘traitors” such as abortion doctors are hung and displayed for the public). Furthermore, the height and dominance of the wall in the image compared to the size of the figures below shows its un-scalability to demonstrate that the handmaids are trapped both physically and mentally. "
 

In addition, the 1996 version is also quite expressive. It shows a blurred painted faceless women smudged. I read how "This reflects how the handmaids have lost part of their individual identities because of their position and lack of status (including how they are renamed after their masters)". There is also that contrast of a black background with the red.

 

 2019 cover is simple yet effective silhouette of a handmaid wearing red and white. It is explained that "In the recently created fireproof edition of the novel, to fight against banned books, this is the cover they used. “Because powerful words can never be extinguished” – Penguin Random House." I think this cover is also reflective of the use of digital art being so popular in recent times.

The other versions all carry the same tones and ideas. They all symbolise the main themes of the book and feature either a women, a silhouette or faceless uniform with a contrasting background usually dark or in a way that stand out. As for the text the later the covers the bolder and simpler the typefaces are.

For the next part of this exercise, I had a look at the graphic design lightbulb project which you generate as many quick design possibilities by rearranging typography, colours, motifs as many times as you can. Using thumbnail sketches, the ideas flowed pretty quickly using the main motifs and colours such as, red white and black, silhouettes, a wall and flowers/petals. I also played around with the composition of the text, making the title bend around the design, or fit in somewhere or for example making a shape of a bonnet in this design. As for text my ideas were either keeping it bold and a classic type of fonts to see which fit the tone a lot better and then also keeping the focus on the image rather than the title. 

 

As illustrated, I did my own versions instead of keeping the features of the actual book’s designs. The theme of power and being trapped I have showed using walls, dark silhouette of a man and an all-seeing eye which relates to the saying "under his eye" within the books as a greeting. The red and white of the uniform I focused heavily on too as it connected to a lot of other things i added such as flowers and red petals. This imagery symbolises new life, death, violence and the use of blood as fertility is one of the important parts of this story if not the most important, these handmaids are tasked with being surrogates for these rich couples in power, so the blood and flowers are an appropriate addition. I also kept two of the covers very simple with only using red and white alternating the text (white on red, red on white) and only keeping the authors name black. The shape of the text too just to add some creative flare bending around the image or sloping off the page.