Alice in Wonderland - developing initial designs of front cover - design 4 and 5

For these designs I wanted to experiment with the use of the main character with in the front cover, being the main focus, I considered taking the illustrations to be situated in card portrayals to link with the theme of the Queen of Hearts, creating a deck like structure with the characters in the narrative of the book. I felt that only one of the designs were successful through how the majority of the compositions were minimalistic, being too plain, which would not have worked well with the target audience that I wanted to attract. The 3rd thumbnail design worked well as it incorporated all the characters and filled the cover, becoming visually appealing with room for further refinement with the use of the colour scheme. I did however have to consider whether the cover would attract the young audience as I felt that the cover would suit a slightly older young audience through the structure of the placement of the cards on the design, a possibility of the imagery being to complex for the target market.

For the last development, I looked into using the white rabbits pocket watch as a theme for the imagery. I began designing with the main character Alice and the white rabbit run across the hands of a clock which worked well with relating the theme to the pocket watch. However I felt that the cover themes did not work well with both the narrative and the target market. The imagery was not obvious enough to relate to the narrative especially for the young audience to be able to understand the connection; It needed to be simple and not complex in both visuals and the structure. I felt that this cover theme could possibly work for an older audience, however I still disagree with the visuals as they don't suit the narrative, it doesn't explain or show anything that is obviously relatable to the book. Feedback from Peers:

" I don't think the imagery works well with the book. The use of the characters work well and the style is good but the clocks don't work with the story as much as the Mad Hatters tea party design. I think you need to develop this further so that it would suit the audience you are aiming for." - Eva Lambert

I felt that this feedback was accurate and reflected my thoughts on the design work that I had done for this theme. I decided not to continue with this design and focus on the more iconic scenes that would be easily recognisable to the audience.