Rational- New Penguin brief, 'One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest'

Rational,

Penguin brief ‘One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’.

 

I have arrived at a competition brief that suits me well, I have chosen to pursue in the brief based round ‘One Few Over the Cuckoo’s Nest’ by Ken Casey. The brief is being set by the publishers Penguin, they want a new fresh book cover for this well-known novel that can relate to a new generation of readers avoiding the obvious images and film promotional graphics. Penguin specifies originality is the key!

 

This is what I find exciting about this brief it’s challenging in the way that it really will let me experiment with the hard-hitting storyline and meanings behind this novel, at the same time being aware of the wide target audience. I feel like having the chance to design this book jacket, will really give me the opportunity to use my specialist area illustration, which I can integrate with publishing. I have recently listened to the audio book ‘one flew over the Cuckoo’s nest’ read by the author Ken Casey, this really made my mind up when deciding on what brief I should do, as his voice was very atmospheric and instantly visuals came to mind.

 

 As talked about in the brief, there are many messages and themes within the book that I could touch upon.  As listed by Penguin, some of the issues the book explores are political, social, victim, madness, sanity, affection, violence and many more. Listening to the book on audio really helped me realise what the book meant to me and how it made me feel.

 

This brief could help in my dissertation, relating the research on both projects on how hard hitting subjects can be shown using satire and if its correct to use this approach? I want to integrate this throughout my research. I shall look at the way that political illustrations use satire to show current events, this will feed into my other project on the way that the novel ‘One Flew Over the cuckoo’s Nest’ is written. I could compare the way that they both could be seen as quite satirical, which would be up for debate. The novel would be seen as a very complex and delicate subject of punishment and mental health. I wouldn’t want to go into much detail in respects of the subject matter. Instead an overview on the way that past writers and illustrators have shown this is there work and how they’ve dealt the diverse opinions.