I started with the intention of designing the typography to form the shape of the sea, so I drew some curved lines as guides to draw each word onto. When writing I wanted each word to take a different font that hopefully reminds people of the seaside back in the 1960's (the year the book was written)I experimented with some colour schemes and thought the pale pastle 'candy' colours would work well on a children's book and give the impression of 'fun' and association to a child's seaside holiday.
Through my research I have found that all though this is a fun, children s story it also includes some very dark themes including murder, child labor, phobias, threatening behavior....
So I wanted to slightly communicate a tone of these themes. To do this I dropped in a black background to contrast with the pastel colours.
I used minimal imagery to fill out the rest of the space. A large peach circle to represent the peach, some seagulls as they are an element of the story and also provide association to the seaside. Key characters later in the book are sinister sharks so I included a vector silhouette of one circling at the bottom.
I wanted to also include the 'adventure and travel' aspect of the story and the desired destination of James travels, New York. So I included a vector silhouette of the iconic cityscape.
To complete this design I added the spine with a subtle indication of the Empire state building and the famous peach stuck on the top of it.
I have also added some colour to the blurb.
After completing this design I think some elements work well such as the spine and the back cover. I am quite happy with the colour scheme to represent the 'dark' humor and content of the story. However looking at it now, I don't think the type is working well to the brief, as it may be to difficult for a child audience to read. The type was also supposed to resemble the look of the sea/ seaside, which I don't think I does to the effect I was looking for. Also the circle looks a bit out of place and is not the same shape as a peach, it probably reminds me more of an orange. I've just realised I've missed off 'Illustrated by Quentin Blake' and '50 years old' so here is another version containing the right information.
