Illustration F17

P4: Book Cover

Creative Brief

Project Description:

Create a unique book cover that garners attention and interest for the reprinted edition of Brain Jacques' book Redwall.

Sender:

Redwall by Brian Jacques

Message:

This story is about Matthais, a young mouse who is determined to find the legendary sword of Martin the Warrior in order to protect the peaceful Redwall Abbey from the evil rat Cluny the Scourge and his invading horde. This story is one of adventure, action, humor, strength, and courage in the face of all odds.

Audience:

This book's target audience is American children and preteens between grades 6-8 (ages 11-14) who have an interest in well written fantasy animal novels. Their teachers and parents are also an part of the target demographic as well as people who grew up reading The Redwall books or who watched the TV show.

Purpose/Objectives:

Since this is reprinting of Brian Jacques 1986 novel, it needs to appeal to a new generation of readers while still being accessible to the original fan-base (the parents and teachers of the new generation). The cover needs to project the epicness and action of the story so that a modern audience can look at the book and think, "This book is for me," while still remaining true to the heart of the story and standing out from other books that fit in this niche of the children's fantasy genre.

Specifications:

Cover: 6" by 9"
Spine: 1" by 9"
Total: 7" by 9"

Illustration Idea/Concept:

This is a fantasy novel and as such, the animals in the story are human-like in nature. I plan to experiment with my own style of anthropomorphism to capture the action of the story within a concept illustration. I want to avoid anything that is too "realistic" because I feel like it'd take away from the concept aspect of the illustration and would be too much like other stories in this particular niche. Should that style of illustration be too narrative, I plan to do a few rough concept drawings with a more minimalist and geometric approach before deciding which direction to take the cover.