James Appleby

1984 Book Cover

Our first brief back was Advanced Illustration in which we had a variety of tasks to choose from.

The option I chose was to create a book cover for George Orwell’s 1984, bearing in mind it was intended for a contemporary audience. Our covers would also be entered into a competition, with the winner receiving a small prize, with a selection of entries being shown at the Salford Museum and Art Gallery in an exhibition. The exhibition is called “1984 Looks Like This” by documentary photographer David Dunnico and with be in 2 parts - The first is Dunnico’s photo essay ‘Reality TV’ which is about the rise of CCTV and the second, will show his collection of George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four editions and ephemera.

Competition Brief

• To design a new cover for a paperback edition of George Orwell’s book ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’.

• The front cover will measure 130mm tall by 150mm wide (9×6”)
  your design should be this size. Ideally it should also include the spine (12.5mm) and rear cover 2x130mm.

• The design can be in colour or black and white, it can use a photograph or illustration, you must own the rights to use any image. The title can be written in words ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’ or ‘1984’ and must appear somewhere on the cover along with the author’s name ‘George Orwell’.

You can add any other items of text such as blurb, price, quotes etc. The back of the book should have the words: “Cover design by” and your name.

I started the brief by looking at different 1984 cover designs, and what part of the book they related to and how effective they where. We also had David Dunnico come in and give us a presentation showing the evolution of the book cover and the variety of styles they came in. This sent me in the right direction, I began to look at past 1984 covers and match similarities. The most common theme I would encounter would be the imagery of Big brother’s eye, used in a variety of formats.

Another theme I noticed was the simplicity and colour schemes from many previous covers reminded me of the russian revolution propaganda posters. Specifically Shepard Fairey’s contribution -

I began to look at old Russian propaganda posters, being primarily influenced by their colour schemes, typography and layouts. Here are a few that where of particular inspiration to me -

I then started to look at ideas for my own cover, I began by looking at significant/famous quotes from the book. I found the quotes interesting in the fact that they could be illustrated to portray a section or scene that summarizes what the book is about. Here are a few interesting ones -

“BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU”

“WAR IS PEACE, FREEDOM IS SLAVERY, IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH.”

“We shall meet in the place where there is no darkness.”

“Until they become conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious.”

“Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows.”

In terms of combining imagery with a quote, after I few drafts I decided I’d use the Big brother quote. In my opinion, this is the strongest theme in the book, the dictator figure that’s always watching and throughout the book, people are reminded of this through posters and news broadcasts. This theme also sits well with the inspiration I gathered from Russian propaganda, in the fact that it’s propaganda from the book itself.

After more drafts, I came across the idea of Society Hierarchy and decided to implement this into my cover. Big brother being at the top, symbolized by one of his eyes and the general public/’Winston Smith’ at the bottom, represented by the word YOU from the the related quote ‘BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU’. This would be set in triangular format, representing a society hierarchy triangle but also representing conspiracy in relation to The Illuminati - a conspiracy theory about an elite government that secretly control/influence the people of the world in accordance to their own agenda. Their motif being the eye of providence or ‘All seeing eye’ at the top of a pyramid. I then began creating my final version

This is my final version of the jacket. I tried to keep the imagery clean and bright with a strong layout, in an attempt to make it standout from other versions. The colour format, layout and type where strongly influenced by the Russian revolution propaganda posters. I’m happy with the final outcome, I think it represents what the book is about and doesn’t look like a typical 1984 jacket design, even with the eye included.

Here’s the full jacket -