The Little Red Cap dust cover design is a school project where I designed a dust cover based on a story from The Brothers’ Grimm. The story I have chosen is Little Red Cap since I wanted to do something heavy on the illustrations to show what I can do in that field.
Using the dust cover design, I also designed advertisements that went with it. It includes an Instagram ad, a bus banner, a horizontal web banner, and a vertical web banner.
Since the target audience for the story of Little Red Cap is children to teens, I wanted the cover to be eye-catching since that is what they look at first when shopping. I wanted Little Red Cap to be the main focus of the design, so I kept that in mind when doing the sketches.
The design is an illustrative piece of Little Red Cap holding her basket while she is walking in the woods. The wolf behind Little Red Cap is to signify that the wolf is a shadow looming over her while the stars signify that there is still light in her path even if the wolf is trying to get her. When deciding on the design, I was inspired by paper cutouts. I wanted the cover to look reminiscent of children's art projects since it is a story that is targeted to kids.
The intended focus of this design is Little Red Cap, so she is the only one that features the colour red on both the front and back pages. The red also helps catch people’s eyes since it’s a very bold colour. To tie in the red into the inner flaps, the drop caps are in the same colour as her dress.
The typeface chosen for the title is called Nori. It was chosen because it’s reminiscent of claw marks, which tie in well with the wolf in the story. The other typeface used is called Agenda. It contrasts well with the typeface of the title since it is soft and clean, much like Little Red Cap herself.
I wanted the advertisements to be as eye-catching as the dust cover itself, to have a higher chance of people having a good look at it to see what it is about.
The design was taken from the dust cover itself to make it look like it was part of the design while still making the book stand out against the background.
The overall feedback was that the majority of the people I showed this project liked what I did with the dust cover, they only suggested some minor tweaks, such as making the wolf darker instead of white to make Little Red Cap stand out even more.
The most notable feedback I got for the advertisements was for the bus ad. It was suggested that the book that was standing up, would look better in the center since it would be framed by the text and the wolf illustration.
