Colour Theory Presentation and Penguin Research

Investigating how we see and perceive colour, looking at the physical, physiological and psychological interpretations of colour.

Books to look at:
Interaction of colour, Joself Albers - how colour can be used in different ways, interrogating how painters use colour to create form etc.
Johannes Itten, The art of colour - a more scientific approach to colour theory.

Basics are primary, secondary, tertiary colours.

Terminology:

'Hue' - one colour
'Colour' - one or several hues
'Chroma' - all colour including shades, tints and tones.

Shades are hues + black
Tints are hues + white
Tones are hues + grey

Can you illustrate the book cover using only colour?
How can colour impact the image - think when using monochromatic colour palette.

JOHANNES ITTEN , THE ART OF COLOUR:

• Contrast in hue, the colours look most intense when no hues are present next to the colours. Complimentary colours have the most contrast as they don't share any similar hues. Very clear with primary colours, when secondary and primary colours are introduced they become more muted.
• Contrast of Light-Dark, strongest expression of light and dark is B&W, yellow and violet have a similar effect.
• Contrast of Saturation, formed by they juxtaposition of light and dark and their various saturation.
• Contrast of Proportion, the balance of two colours, if you have 2 intense colours should be used 50/50, if one is stronger than the other they should be used in balance to each other (the proportions change).
• Contrast in Temperature, juxtaposing hues that can be considered warm and cold, allows for more intense or softer feeling within the colours.
• Complimentary Contrast, juxtaposing complementary colours from a colour wheel or perceptual opposites. Colours appear more vivid as the colours are opposite on the colour wheel. 
• Simultaneous Contrast, formed when boundaries between colours perceptually vibrate. Two colours being the same colour, but depending on what you put it next to a colour the colour looks different to the audience. E.g red next to blue appears more orange, red next to yellow appears more purple. 

JOSEF ALBERS, INTERACTION OF COLOUR:

• Looking at the relativity of colour, how they look when use with each other in terms of a palette more than to the eye as individual colours. 
• Reversed grounds, pointing to the face that the background underneath is changing to highlight the colour remaining the same. 
• Bezold effect, when using black surrounding on a white page the colours look more unified, when white surrounding on a white page looks like the colours are individual shapes. 

Grapheine, a short history of book covers : https://www.grapheine.com/en/history-of-graphic-design/history-of-book-covers-4

Wonder - Ted Carpenter

From the get-go we knew we wanted to have Auggie on the cover of the jacket in some way, but the challenge was how much of Auggie do we show? We believe that the book itself should be what paints the picture of this captivating character and so we approached the Wonder jacket in more abstract terms. With Auggie’s appearance being such an integral part of the Wonder story, our choice was to abstract the character as to not influence the readers’ perception of who Auggie is, while also creating a metaphor for his facial abnormality.

Simple use of colour, white, blue and black, doesn't distract from the image, shows how the use of 3 is most simple as well as most successful. The use of the single eye relates to the book’s narration from multiple perspectives, and then is used on the cover of other follow on stories around the same plot. Has a continuous theme as well as being recognisable, provides continuity to the storie's narrative. 

Penguin Paperbacks 

Penguin Books was founded in 1935 with the purpose of inexpensively producing high quality, but affordable, paperbacks. One of Penguin's strategies was  to implement standardised designs for book covers.
Two bands of colour were wrapped around the book, colour coded to allow readers to choose genre easily:

Green covers were generally for crime novels, 

Cerise (pink) was travel and adventure, 

Dark blue were biographies,

Red for drama,

Purple for essays,

Orange was fiction,

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

It allowed people to spot a penguin book easily due to the unique, unified aesthetic.

Puffin an adopted company of Penguin to publish paperback children's books. Puffin classic series now showcase some of the classic children's stories. Initially it was  illustrated picture books, which then developed into children's fiction.

Marber Grid

The crime series from Penguin was a very popular series, and Marber wanted to be sure audiences could still identify the books after the redesign. Hence, he kept the green color, but lightened it. The three lines in the top third were meant to also remind customers of the old design, while looking more modern. Most of the space was kept clear to allow for imagery.Over time, the design was so successful it was expanded into other lines published by Penguin. 

Children's Book Covers

Most successful children's books have an element that interests their target audience, whether that be texture, bold colours, simplicity etc. A children's book needs to appeal to adults as well as children, as they're often bought as gifts for children. Both adults and children need to be able to understand the feeling of the story from the cover, key themes should be obvious but considered. 

Bold colours with high levels of contrast present the idea of an action packed, wacky book story line.

Pastels suggest a more wholesome theme throughout the book, these are quite often used for longer, larger story books.