Book Cover
Pippi Longstocking
Project Brief: Design a book cover for Penguin's modern release of Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren.
RESEARCH AND MIND MAP: As I read Pippi Longstocking, I paid close attention to the book's themes. Playfulness and Rebellion stuck out, and I created mind maps for each. I explored what those topics looked and felt like as a way to generate visual inspiration.
RESEARCH: I also learned about the author Astrid Lindgren. She was a fierce woman with rebellious and playful streaks herself, and I wanted to pay homage to her spirit in my redesign. I examined previous covers and watched the 1988 movie to see how other artists had addressed these themes.
MOODBOARD: I used these mind maps as a jumping off point to build a mood board. I gathered inspiration from what current children's book designers were doing. At this point I was really interested in simple shapes, bright colors, portraits featuring ornery facial expressions, and hand-made collages.
THUMBNAILS: I sketched thumbnails, noting possible color palettes and font choices for the covers. I played with ornery facial expressions embodying playfulness and rebellion. After peer feedback, I had a few ideas that I wanted to develop further into roughs.
ROUGHS: To characterize playfulness, I broke out the craft supplies. Chunky pastels, pipe cleaners, buttons, and puff balls inspired large carefree movement on the page. I experimenting with a collage aesthetic, cutting out and piecing back together the elements for this first rough by hand.
I used watercolors to illustrate two more of the portraits from my thumbnails.
DIGITAL ROUGHS: I digitized my two favorites, added title, author name, and the Penguin logo to give a more polished feel.
FINAL: After getting more feedback, the craft supply approach felt like it lacked the necessary sophistication to compete in the competitive children's book marketplace. I moved forward with the watercolor as the final cover.
