My chosen task for this assignment is to design a front cover for the ‘One flew over the Cuckoo’s nest’ novel by Ken Kesey.
There were many reasons as to why I selected Ken Kesey’s book at my topic for this assignment. Firstly, I wanted to take part in the real book cover competition and, after a brief research on the internet, I found out about the competition to design the cover for this novel. Unfortunately the competition was aiming specifically at design students and the entry level was set higher than a foundation degree. Despite that, I decided to take up the challenge and have a go at designing this book cover although I knew I would not be able to submit it for the competition.
Secondly, I love this novel, I read it many times when I was growing up and it has had an important influence on my personal development.
I think it is a very complex and challenging book that explores a number of issues, at a much deeper level than the film based on its story.
I saw this assignment as an opportunity to pick up this book and read it again, and to explore it through the means of photography.
About the structure of this assignment:
This paper reflects my experience of working on and completing this assignment. It consists of 4 sections:
Section 1 (The Concept) gives details on how I worked on the idea for the cover design.
Section 2 (Ethical considerations) explains the rationale I used for creating the cover images, including the level of alterations acceptable for this work.
Section 3 (techniques) gives details of the technics I planned to use and used in my work on the book cover.
I started my work with re-reading the novel which I greatly and deeply enjoyed.
As I was reading through the novel, I started making notes so by the time I finished reading it, I had a collection of quotes reflecting on the key themes discussed in the book. I used these quotes to work on the ideas that I wanted to convey in my cover design.
Through a desktop research I found some reviews and additional sources on the novel and the author. I also found images of the previously published front covers of this novel.
My internet sources included:
I drew inspiration from other cover design sites, books and sources. I particularly enjoyed the ‘1000 Polish Book Covers’ and I was really impressed with the entries for the 50 Watt’s book cover contest.
The information below helped me to narrow down to the ideas that I wanted to reflect in the cover. 1. Title
The title of the novel is taken from the children’s folk rhyme:“Vintery, mintery, cutery, corn,
Apple seed and apple thorn,
Wire, briar, limber lock
Three geese in a flock
One flew East
One flew West
And one flew over the cuckoo's nest” (Source: Wikipedia)
The title gives a lot of clues to the main story of the book. It’s also quite a striking visual image – as demonstrated below, it has been used on one of the previously published covers.
2. Images of the published front covers
My own reflections on the published covers: The latest cover design (5th from the left) shows a picture of a deserted corridor in a hospital. I liked the way that the picture is ‘leaning to the right’, as if the viewer is walking unsteadily or leaning on the wall. The blue artificial light adds the regimented sterile motif to the image.
After re-reading the novel, I decided to focus my cover on the theme of Power and Control that flows through the novel and links all other topics together (gender, human relationships, sanity, mental health, freedom, machine vs human etc). From reviewing the covers, it seems that this theme has not been explored fully (the covers seem more in line with the film story and refer mainly to the mainstream interpretation of the novel’s main plot - set in a psychiatric ward). I decided to make a stronger use of the Power and Control theme in my cover design. 
