Having looked into HG Wells who he was, what he wrote and learning a bit more about his life I now need to decide which books of his to choose and design covers for.

I did a bit of brainstorming around some of his books that caught my attention the most.. I brainstormed around the plot of the stories, key words, events or things within the story which may help inspire my designs. I have come to realise that all his books are based around Science, love and war, a lot of them are rags to riches tales which I quite like the idea of.

The books that I took the most interest from were a mixture;

• Ann Veronica
• The Time Machine
• The history of Mr Polly
• War of the worlds
• Tono Bungay

Ann Veronica

Strong, independent, feminist, “new woman” middle class, sufferer, suffragette, 1907, ambitious, rebellious, love, science, black hair, narrow eyebrows, attractive, delicate, feminine features, she has a dissected frog in a jar, a pigs skull on her wardrobe, black shiny covered notebooks, hockey and tennis racket in her bedroom. She owns a red (risque) knee length dress, gold turkish slippers and a pair of (shock, horror!) trousers (controversial for the time!) fancy dress ball as a pirate

Tono Bungay

potion, miraculous cure all, pleasant tasting liquid, no positive effects, ineffective, turns into a formidable fortune, was successful due to skilled advertising and public credibility, most creative novel, science

War of the worlds

aliens, war, panic, mayhem, fire, destroyed, war

The Time Machine

white flower, cogs, time, futuristic, technology, love, science, time travel,

The history of Mr Polly

struggle, depression, poor, middle class, mid life crisis, ambition, changes, unfulfilled, smart, hat, suit

Ideally I wanted to choose books that were published around a similar time era so that they would work better as a set and also because the style and art influences would be from the same eras… however I think I am going to choose Ann Veronica, The Time Machine and Tono Bungay.

I started reading the first 90 pages of Ann Veronica an hour ago to give me a better idea of the plot… Who are the characters and what kind of girl Ann Veronica is. I feel like it is important to go into depth in this research because details make better designs! Knowledge is power! (or in my case knowledge=better design outcomes!)

For anyone wanting a cheeky link to a free online version of the book:

http://pinkmonkey.com/dl/library1/digi496.pdf

I like the fact she is a rebellious, ambitious young girl trying to put her mark on the world. I feel that because I am in a similar situation myself a century later I can try and put a modern take on this!

The time Machine – I have chosen this one as it was his first novel and the fact it is still relevant today – time travelling is still a popular concept today. I felt like with the science and technology background to this I could do a lot with it design wise too. When I think of this title I see cogs and clocks and I got the idea in my head of trying out a futurist style technical drawing of inner workings of a clock as art of the design.

Tono Bungay – This is the title I know the least about; I did look at reviews online though and one really helped me. They stated that the book is basically about a “potion” that was successfully yet falsely advertised and sold as a miraculous-cure-to-all remedy when in actual fact it was nothing more than just a pleasant tasting liquid! This is apparently the most artistic of HG Wells work. I feel like this title gives me more scope for designing more than some of the other titles.

What do we know about these books?

We know that they are timeless classics.. unaffected by time and styles. HG Wells was English and the locations in his books are either real or fictional places in England. I need to combine both of these into my designs to really make them authentic.