Study task - 8 Colour theory (The establishment)

Research the use of colour (and colour theory) within existing book covers for your chosen book for the Penguin brief

 

The colour used in this design is reminiscent of newspapers as to keep an official design to it. The white used in the design has a light yellow undertone as to make the design slightly more inviting. The white colour in the base colour played off the penguin logo using the contrast of hue, with the slight yellow paper and the orange logo. The use of the different colours of black in the bowler hat create a contrast of saturation within the black bowler hat, this creates the shape to the mask. 

Research the use of colour within Penguin paperbacks

In 1935 penguin publishing was created with a plan to create quality books but a bit cheaper. The books cost sixpence and are colour-coded: 

Green for crime novels,

 Cerise (or pink to some) was travel and adventure,

 Dark blue were biographies,

Red for drama,

Purple for essays, 

Orange for fiction

Yellow was for miscellaneous titles that did not fit into any of the above categories

Gray for world affairs 

The first batch includes books by Ernest Hemingway and Agatha Christie.

the simple design with the white band in the middle sandwiched in between two block os the same hue. 

These colour coded designs were cheap to produce and they created a memorable design that anyone could spot from far away. Even today you will recognize then even if they have not been produced for about 20 years. 

Pelican book a subdivision of penguin 

light blue= non-fiction 

puffin= children's books

peacock books=young adult readers

Research the use of colour in book cover design. How is colour used within the genre of your chosen book?

Within the nonfiction left-leaning political books there is a lot of use of red, as it is a colour that is associated with passion, importance. As one of the primary colours it is the colour that requires the most attention. Most books cover design to use a lot of black and use the contrast extension theory as it balanced out the strong red with the dark red, as to try to showcase the importance of the red elements.