Put People To Sleep With Your Art
On the 31st October Before and After magazine asked it’s readership to submit cover art for a book designed to put one to sleep.
The brief included;
- Must not arouse the read.
- No thought provoking titles
- No gripping images
- No bright colours
- No edgy layouts.
Quite a challenge for a designer I think you agree…hmmm how to design it ‘well’ yet keep it insanely boring at the same time. Taps finger on mouth.
A vast number of designers rose to this interesting challenge, which is a useful assignment in design for a specific purpose - of course all design for clients (businesses) must serve a specific purpose, which is why it’s a good challenge, and a difficult one at that.
Over 150 covers were submitted and Before and After yesterday published 156 of them along with a critique on those you see with a red dot. Before and After will add more critiques over time.
The critiques are give great insight into how design can impact upon mood - each critique concludes at to whether the designer has passed or failed their assignment.
Here are some of my favourites, whether they put me to sleep or not is another matter 
December 7th, 2008 at 12:04 pm
The bowls one is definately the most boring! What a unique and interesting competition, wish I could have entered it
December 9th, 2008 at 10:08 am
I wish I had time to enter competitions like this actually, a lot of them look great fun, but every time I plan to enter one I just run out of time to get it done
The bowls one is ugly as anything, but I think out of those submitted it’s really clever for it’s intended purpose and quite funny too.