I have chosen The Wind In The Willows for my project brief because I am not overly familiar with the storyline.  I feel that this gives me an open mind on reading the book and getting to know the characters to influence my final book cover design.  Also i know it's a children's book and from looking at book covers I can see that the designs/illustrations are quite playful and clearly reference the book.
It is also pretty clear that numerous book covers have been designed since it was first published in 1908.  This means to me I have to get the right balance of originality since all the book covers are all similar, whilst maintaining the clear identity of The Wind In The Willows.


 Most of them use soft/watercolour based colours which I think works really well using this style on river banks and the river.  This is because It gives a fairy tale look about it, quite mysterious and unusual.  The book covers in general do say something about the characters.  Toad looks rich as he inherited money from his father and certain imagery suggests this too which are in my sketchbook.  They also have a lot of depth to them which I think is worth thinking about in my own design(s) as I think it can mean the book with-holds more than It looks.  It also suggests a sense of adventure ahead too.  Another thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of attention to detail throughout my collected research I have in my sketchbook.  This adds clarity and I find this visually interesting.  I have now got to think about if this is something I will follow along with too,  however I yet to experiment with different types of media and what fits with what.  Only being a week in, ideas at this stage are still distance however I do have a slight design concept as how It could look like in my head.  These are likely to change when I start to sketch and experiment with different medias such as charcoal, paint, acrylic, pencil, pen etc.

Typography in the book covers are all different to a certain extent whilst still remaining pretty similar.  Some of this includes different thickness, kerning and italics.  The typefaces reflect the great success the book has had since it was published over 100 years ago.  It adds clarity and is just a classic!  I also need to experiment with different typefaces and play around with them in Illustrator.  As I've said i want my design to be striking so I would like a typeface that keeps the book's identity with a certain edge to it but I yet to do this.  I have found a few Wind In The Willows type faces that people have made to give me an idea and put me on track.  I found one by someone called Ashleigh Brown who is an illustrator.