Designing a dust jacket

I have been looking into a lot of book designing blogs and sites lately and also watching videos about book designing.

Art Directors that I have been following:

http://www.leonickolls.co.uk/blog/

http://www.johannabasford.com/blog

http://georginalycett.prosite.com

http://bookcoverarchive.com

http://weandthecolor.com

It's nice to read the designer's blog because it shows not only the final product of a book cover but also the process. I enjoy reading about the things that inspires book designers and why they choose to put certain things in their designs.

TED talk:

Chip Kidd, the book designer for the original Jurassic Park book cover did a TED talk titled 'Chip Kidd: Designing books is no laughing matter. Ok it is.’ The TED talk was quite funny and casual. Chip Kidd discussed how he got into book designing, he originally wanted to be a graphic designer however, after being offered a position at Alfred A. Knopf (book publishing house) as an art director he decided to work in book design. He describes the job of book designing as asking oneself "what do stories look like?". Chip Kidd suggests that stories "all need a face" to give readers a good first impression and to give form to the book's content and "manages a careful balance between the two". I think that quote is very important as book cover should entice the readers to pick up the book however, the book design's motive shouldn't be purely about marketing but also giving the readers a visual image of what the book is really about.

The book designer's responsibility is to:

-The reader- "Wow I need to read that!"

-The Publisher- it has to be 'publishable'

-The Author- They have to love it (more than what they imagine the book cover will be)

Research:

Whenever I pass by magazine stalls in shops, I try to look and see if there's any material that I can use to help me with my EPQ project, however, most articles are about illustration or image manipulation which can be easily accessed online and nothing really specific to book designing.