Design Ideas

This was a design inspired by the Turkish silhouette cover. The two mean are looming shadows across the Clutter family home. The small addition of orange is to signify they were inside and completely unaware of the danger outside. Although this has worked fairly well in creating a modern approach to the story, the use of 'image trace' to create these designs seems lazy and a common approach. In order to create something original, each element of the figure/design needs to have been considered. These outlines appear ominous with their faces half in shadow, however that was just a fortunate result of editing. For this competition they are looking for clever, elemental responses that break the surface of each story.

This design was to use some research on Richard Hickock who had a head injury as a result of an automobile accident. Some suggest this was the cause of some of his mental health problems and this design explores the link between his facial disfigurement and his desire to murder. Of course this could be considered offensive in some ways, so I have tried to make it so extreme it cannot be linked with reality. The author's name has been placed upside down in order to the show how his story ran parallel to the killers and the project effected his own mental health. The red outline is to suggest Dick's original self is trapped in all these obscure identities.

One issue with it is that it only includes Dick and not Perry, so perhaps if I was to explore the back cover Perry could be placed on there. He also suffered injuries in his troubled past, including leg disfigurement which could have been illustrated as two legs standing next to the blurb. Although this design has potential, it is very similar to many other books on the market. The black, white and red aesthetic is common and the sharp vector illustrations accompanied with bold type has been done before. One thing that has been unexplored is the extreme distortion, many designs are usually not stretched or pulled in risk of looking careless, yet this deliberate approach might be more successful.

This collage uses a painting Perry Smith did on death row of Jesus, which has been spliced with an image of Perry Smith's mugshot. This is to create quite a new angle on Perry and give some insight into his complex personality. He was quite an artistic, thoughtful individual, who perhaps if he had been raised in different circumstances could have lived a very different life. In some respects the story focuses on his misfortune and how Dick is able to lead him into this situation. One of the last things he wrote was a poem about his search for human ties, including 'Perhaps my eyes shall never reach, The light of freedom's skies.' This shows his guilt, which I have highlighted by the juxtaposition with Jesus. Only Perry has been included as he was the killer and was more emotionally deluded and driven than Dick. I hope to develop this cover with a serious, bible-like aesthetic; with simplistic, sans serif type.

There was also an experiment with overlaying the image with Jesus, so they could create a new warped image. Although this did look creepy, the intent of the image was less clear and the hand produced work of the previous design felt more natural than the overly edited design here.

Whilst watching the 1967 film there was a monologue at one point about how tattoos are the equivalent of police badges and club patches, because they signify belonging to a group/ having an identity. I thought It would be interesting to convey this by having a row of arms, each linking to someone in the story, all containing a symbol. Tattoos for the killers, Kansas Police badge for the captors, a farm logo for the Clutter family and Capote's signature or pen brand. This has not been developed past sketches because it seemed like a complex task that would require extremely good editing skills. Within the time limit I don't think I could have produced this well without making it very illustrative and drawing based.

Another idea similar to this was to have a patch of tattooed skin look as if it was sewn onto a police officer's uniform. However this may have looked too grotesque, putting off some of the market.