Responsive - Penguin Design Awards - A Clockwork Orange

Having never read 'A Clockwork Orange' or seen the 1970's film I saw this brief as a great opportunity to make some original work with a fresh view of the cult classic. Until now I've not worked on any sort of book cover so hopefully I'll learn a little in regards to type and print, taking the design template with bleed and crop marks into consideration.

Before reading the book I looked into the meaning of the title out of curiosity. A 'Clockwork Orange' is cockney slang for 'fool'. Later I discovered the relevance of this being related to Alex's brainwashing and his following conformity.

Having heard that the story had some rather dark themes I sort of braced myself for it. I really didn't expect it to be quite this disturbing though. Violence doesn't usually phase me too much however I found some of the scenes very discomforting, the parts including rape in particularly.

Violence aside I found the story incredibly strange. The use of futuristic Russian/Cockney slang was difficult to adjust to and initially I failed to see the relevance. According to 'The Anthony Burgess Foundation' the book was inspired by Burgess's visit to Leningrad, Russia in the 60's where he drew comparisons between this city and Manchester. Burgess named his invented slang 'Nadsat', Being Russian for 'teen'. I'd hope to echo 'Nadsat' in my cover.

Next I plan to watch the film, just to get another perspective on the story. So far for the cover I've made a few decisions on how I want it to look. My work must reflect the darkness in the story, I want it to be haunting and unsettling as what I've read.