What A Carve Up - Final Artwork

My 'What A Carve Up!' design is all finished up. I think it's another strong addition to my book design portfolio. I tried to capture that old newspaper style feel and think I've really managed to do this through my choice of typeface. The blurb especially really gives off that newspaper vibe. I'm super pleased with the final outcome, and think i've really captured the era of the book with the image.

What A Carve Up! - Colour

The design has gone through a few small changes during the colouring process, I decided to add a break in the spine of the design as i felt like the tape ribbon would interfere too much with the spine text. As for the colour, Im attempting to get an old style newspaper theme since the book is based around a newspaper columnist. 

I went with the old red letter wax for the actual ink colour, as it was a perfect way to portray the bloodied tape ribbons and violence whilst still sticking to the newspaper theme. I think the colour works well with the vintage paper background look, had i kept the ink black it would have looked too much like ink, and taken away from the blood effect.

What A Carve Up! - Ink

Here's the ink work for my What A Carve Up! design. The basic premise of the book is that the murder mystery series 'What A Carve Up!' begins to play out in real life. I have tried to capture this in the VHS by including six shot revolver cylinders and a bloody dagger on the VHS label. The design is more simplistic than my usual book covers, but i thought this would help spice up my portfolio by adding a wider range of design styles. On the back page I have included an Air plane, and integral part of the story and managed to connect it to the entire image by joining the smoke plume and VHS film/tape.

What A Carve Up! - New Project!

As previously mentioned I'm now starting the Penguin Adult's prize for What A Carve Up! as always I began with a thumbnail sketch, however this time i had multiple ideas that i couldn't decide between, so mapped a bunch out to help me decide.

Mapping out quick thumbnail sketches like this really helps give you an idea of the composition, one of the most important factors is weather or not your design would actually work as a book cover, and which ones work better.
I liked both the top left and bottom right designs, but eventually decided on the bottom right design as it's a bit of a break from my usual double page spread 'scene' designs. The initial Ink work will be up soon.