Content and Cover Development

I have now began to develop my cover design to how I would like my final one to look. I chose to develop the design that worked best out of all my embosses from Friday, this design uses the original idea of using English type that would be flipped upside down to read in Arabic. The inspiration for the mandalas comes from patterns seen at mosques and other islamic locations, these patterns are also very popular for clothing and interior design in countries where Urdu is spoken.

I created the design using the full title of my brief 'Celebrating Urdu' as well as just 'Urdu'. I think the Celebrating Urdu version looks a little bit too busy, I also think the word 'celebrating' doesn't necessarily have to be on the cover. The version with just 'Urdu' draws more attention to the pattern design, as well as keeping it simple as the mandala is quite detailed.

I also felt that the previous double page spread designs weren't really working as they were either too complicated or confusing. This idea uses the English and Arabic body of text on one page, with the letters on the other- the big letters would be foiled in different colours (most probably silver and red). The English letter is placed with the Arabic letter to show the contrast between the two- reflecting on the differences between the two languages. 

These designs will obviously developed further this week and next.

I had a little bit of trouble printing these this afternoon on inDesign as I couldn't figure out how to get the correct pages lined up next to each other. However, I have an inDesign workshop tomorrow which will help me to figure out how to print my book correctly. I managed to get the rough drafts printed successfully in the end but in A5 size instead of the size I wanted which is closer to A6.