I found this amazing photo of a zebra face and thought this would work well to illustrate the front cover. I like the bold, symmetrical, striped pattern and strong black and white contrast. Through this image I have chosen to illustrate the 'horror' side of the novel, a part I remember well, is a highly descriptive scene where by the Zebra is viciously eat alive.
As the indian boy 'Pi' and the tiger are actually the two main characters in the story and not the zebra. I considered adding an orange gradient to the Zebra image to make stripes look as though they belonged to a tiger. However this didn't work well and I found the red gradient gave a more dramatic 'horror' tone and indication to the zebra's fait.
The typeface has been changed a couple of times. I originally chose a large, bold font set in capitals and slightly eroded, because I though it would give the sense of being on a ship or out at sea (the setting of the novel). But I didn't see it working and it wasn't giving off the look I was after. So I have changed the title to a serif font for clarity.
Overall I think using photography is a good media option for this project. But if I do decide to go down this rote I intend to use my own photographs. However I will continue experimenting to see what else might work.
I thought I'd do this design as an alternative, using a photograph I'd taken myself. I don't like it as much as the zebra one, probably because the tiger is in a strange position. Also the tiger is on land in this photo and in the book it is out at sea on a boat.... I think the black against the green is a mistake too. I do like the new layout of type though, moving the authors name to the bottom of the page and informing that it is a novel, I have changed the choice of font again.
As the novel is written in the first person, from a young boys point of view, I think the font of the front cover's title should reflect this. In some ways childish.
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