Working with Augmented Reality app Aurasma, my proposal for this brief was to have the book cover contain an "Easter egg" of sorts, and potentially add a new dimension to the medium of books. In my opinion the printed book industry is struggling against the tide as digital replacements march through in the form of e-book readers and open source audio books, and to keep up it seems sensible that publishers should start to make more of what their books can offer.
Using Aurasma, the reader can view the cover of the book and it will open a menu of extras. These extras will include character biographies, links to other books by the author and other online media related to the book such are reviews or reviews of film adaptations and sequels.
The inspiration behind the idea was the Film Noir adaptation and other film noir sources in past and present media. At the time it seemed to be coming back a little, with artist like Beyonce using Noir as a theme around which to build her videos.
The cover is designed to look like Marlowe standing behind his office door, which is something I felt could work well as a series cover for the other Marlowe novels that Penguin has on its list.
Below is a rough look at how the AR would kick in, the door would open as the light goes out and the screen would show a first person perspective of someone walking to Marlowe's desk before sifting through the papers [character bios] and other features.
