I decided to rent a copy of the book itself and give it a read over to understand the ideologies and messages that were being portrayed through Caitlins writing. She is a fantastic author and I enjoyed reading the book tremendously.
Next I decided to look into the exisiting book cover and just write down what worked well and what I felt needed changing. After doing this I just decided to completely change the design as I felt it had no relevance to the concept of the book around feminism and that she believes that feminist ideologies have been neglected over the years. I watched a Youtube video on where she why she decided to write the book to help me create a new refreshing contemporary concept for my new cover design that was comical however serious towards feminist values. In the interview she states that people may think that in order to be a feminist you need to be very loud and outspoken about women's rights which in the early 1970s books were written about making a stand but now a days people don’t expect you to be angry about it as it has moved forward a great deal. Most people think that all feminists simply “hate men” well this of course, is not the case as some petty feminist ideologies are based upon women being used as a sexual gratification of a males desire. She states that even as a feminist she does not hate men however she believes that after a 100,000 years of patriarchy that men could do with a little rest.
She also focuses on the topic of feminism and the use of women as more of a sexual desire than men. I wanted to focus my design around this concept and make it clear and evident coupling it with a humorous approach which is a common theme throughout her book.
Development
I started by thinking of idea which could represent the key theory represented in her book of patriarchy which simply means men having power in society and especially over women. Women are constantly being sexualised and I wanted to convey this in a illustration so I decided to draw a pole dancer, with stereotypically feminine features which are displayed through the male gaze. Such as a small waist, slim figure and long legs.
Once I'd drawn this I traced it into the computer and edited it to make it a higher quality image. I wanted to conform to this ideologies however also make a direct stand and ironic approach to the values too, by clearly showing that it isn’t right but also adding a little bit of humour.
Next, I added some typography to give the reader the book title however, I felt the design still looked quite bland and plain.
I used a sans serif font to start with however I felt it didn’t really look as authentic as I wanted the book to come across as. So I then reverted back to working in monotone colours to focus on the design rather than the aesthetics and changed the type to a serif font so the book appeared to be more timeless.
I then added a splash of colour to the design to make it more visually appealing and vibrant. I used faint feminine colours such as light pinks, creams and browns. I added a silk background to add texture and dept to the design.
I decided to change the body of the image from black to pink to put more attention on the body, and making it a separate colour to the type detached the image with the type as they weren’t typically connected. I was portraying a message of this was NOT how to be a woman so I wanted them to be as disconnected as possible.
I then changed the colour of how to be a into a different colour to woman and made sure woman was bold to ensure that the reader is directed to the main point of the book, women.
I altered it slightly again to see if i could make it look more attractive but decided to stick with the original design.
Final design with full spine and blurb below
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