Do Judge a Book by Its Cover - Roughs

I focused on arrangement of type and trying to create a sense of dynamic movement with this rough, but I think it might be too crowded for a book cover, which should be easy to read and interpret. It was my first idea so development from this point has been beneficial in the design of the rest of my roughs. I also feel that I should focus more on the specific imagery of the Ray gun for my cover as this rough is more dedicated to the type than the image. 

For this rough I again wanted to experiment with a flexible composition of type, but with less crowded arrangement and a more symmetrical alignment of each word. Every word in the title of my book has three letters, and from a design standpoint this is interesting to me as I'd like to use this brief as an opportunity to expand my understanding and use of typography in my work. 

This is one of my more successful roughs as I feel that it captures the essence of the book without being too crowded or overly complex. I took actual Ray guns and laser guns etc from old action figures that I have and studied their individual designs for this rough. I'm happy with how this came out as I feel all the guns I chose to include are recognisable and unique. I'm also happy with the composition as I tried to arrange the drawings in a way that would fill the page but without having to compromise the size or shape of the drawings to do so. I drew these out a couple of times to play with how each one would be presented on the page and how it would fit on with other corresponding designs. 

This idea was based on a thought I had when I was looking through the book and found a section to do with equations and studies of light by the author. I don't understand any of the science behind it, but when I saw the shape of the equation it made me think of a cartoon cannon, with the way it expands into a square shape at the far right and almost has a trigger shape in the upside down 'y' symbol (Im sure that symbol has a name but I really do not comprehend maths). I drew around the equation the shape I basically saw when I noticed it, with extra details added to properly represent it as a laser gun. I think this is a solid idea as it shows the viewer the dual nature of this book and how it literally explains the 'inner workings' of Ray guns. I don't think the type works on this particular design though and I'm not sure where else I could take this idea, so I don't think I'll be moving forward with this rough. 

This is the rough I'm probably going to develop for my final idea. I was deciding between this and my third rough but the group feedback we received on Monday helped me decide more in favour of this one. I've used the triple letter theme of each word in this design to make type that will hopefully be identical and symmetrical. I chose to have the 'zap' being zapped on the cover because it's an onomatopoeic word and it suggests excitement and danger, and it's the part of the title that caught my attention in the first place on the original cover. To develop this rough I'd alter the design of whatever contraption is firing the laser, and also alter the size and positioning of the text to make room for the authors name and subtitle on the front cover.