Phase One: Research

Series: a group or a number of related or similar things, events, etc., arranged or occurring in temporal, spatial, or other order or succession.

Sequence- the following of one thing after another

Sign: A stimulus pattern that has a meaning.

Ex: In some parts of the world it is offensive you raise your middle finer to someone.

Index: An 'index' is defined by some sensory feature, A, (something directly visible, audible, smellable, etc) that correlates with and thus implies B.

Ex: Bathroom Signs.

Symbol: Easily removable from their context, and are closely associated with large sets of other words.

Ex: Recycle Symbol

A successful bookjacket ultimately looks (for a lack of a better word) cool. A viewer quickly glances at book covers and something on there has to immediately grab their attention. For me I usually like covers that have one main image that is clean and sharp with minimal text.

Some book covers are successful by using just words.

The book series I'm going to redesign is the Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld. The three books are Uglies, Pretties, and Specials. Although the series sounds superficial it is a good look into dystopic future that isn't all that hard to imagine. The series addresses governmental, environmental, and body image issues.

Scott Westerfeld: (born May 5, 1963) is an American-born author of science fiction. He was born in the U.S. state of Texas and now lives in Sydney, Australia and New York City, USA. His book Evolution's Darling was a New York Times Notable Book (2000), and won a Special Citation for the 2000 Philip K. Dick Award. The Risen Empire and The Killing of Worlds are parts one and two of the same book, originally titled Succession. In 2005 it was published in the UK as one book under the title The Risen Empire.

So Yesterday won a Victorian Premier's Award and The Secret Hour won an Aurealis Award. So Yesterday has been optioned to be made into a film by one of the producers of Fahrenheit 9/11 andBowling for Columbine.

Peeps and Uglies were both named as Best Books for Young Adults 2006 by the American Library Association. The Uglies series was optioned by Twentieth Century Fox as a possible film series in 2006.

Uglies: Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.

But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world -- and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

Pretties: Perfect. Perfectly wrong.


Tally has finally become pretty. Now her looks are beyond perfect, her clothes are awesome, her boyfriend is totally hot, and she's completely popular. It's everything she's ever wanted.

But beneath all the fun -- the nonstop parties, the high-tech luxury, the total freedom -- is a nagging sense that something's wrong. Something important. Then a message from Tally's ugly past arrives. Reading it, Tally remembers what's wrong with pretty life, and the fun stops cold.

Now she has to choose between fighting to forget what she knows and fighting for her life -- because the authorities don't intend to let anyone with this information survive.

Specials: "Special Circumstances":

The words have sent chills down Tally's spine since her days as a repellent, rebellious ugly. Back then Specials were a sinister rumor -- frighteningly beautiful, dangerously strong, breathtakingly fast. Ordinary pretties might live their whole lives without meeting a Special. But Tally's never been ordinary.

And now she's been turned into one of them: a superamped fighting machine, engineered to keep the uglies down and the pretties stupid.

The strength, the speed, and the clarity and focus of her thinking feel better than anything Tally can remember. Most of the time. One tiny corner of her heart still remembers something more.

Still, it's easy to tune that out -- until Tally's offered a chance to stamp out the rebels of the New Smoke permanently. It all comes down to one last choice: listen to that tiny, faint heartbeat, or carry out the mission she's programmed to complete. Either way, Tally's world will never be the same.

Word List:

Ultramodern. Futuristic. Dystopian. Beauty. Ugly. Stupid. Intelligence. Surgery. Brain washed. Unpreventable. Age. Health. Conformity. Love. Longing. Happiness. Hope. Dreams.Perfection. Utopia. Society. Self-worth. Body image. Individuality. Confidence. Fun. Work. Trust. Questioning. Resistance. Preservation. Rebel. Radical. Peer pressure. Big Brother. Government. Conspiracy. Censorship. Isolation. Freedom. Control. Powerless. Machines. Dehumanizing. Individuality. Independence. Programming

Definitions:

1. Isolation: set or placed apart; detached or separated so as to be alone.

2. Beauty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

3. Resistance: an underground organization composed of groups of private individuals working as an opposition force in a conquered country to overthrow the occupying power, usually by acts of sabotage, guerrilla warfare, etc.

4. Utopia: any visionary system of political or social perfection.5. Individuality:

6. Dehumanization: to deprive of human qualities or attributes; divest of individuality

7. Freedom: political or national independence; the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint.

8. Powerless: unable to produce an effect; lacking power to act; helpless

9. Society: an organized group of persons associated together for religious, benevolent, cultural, scientific, political, patriotic, or other purposes. the body of human beings generally, associated or viewed as members of a community

10. Intelligence:capacity for learning, reasoning, understanding, and similar forms of mental activity; aptitude in grasping truths, relationships, facts, meanings, etc.

Tone: Science Fiction Dystopia

To Suggest List:

To suggest that perfection isn't perfect.

To suggest that a utopian society is not the answer.

To suggest that beauty does not solve world problems.

To suggest that the power of government shouldn't be in the hands of just a few elites.

To suggest that one person can change the world.

To suggest the power of individuality.

To suggest the futuristic reaction to the harmful environment present today.

To suggest that life without free choice is no life at all.

To suggest that emotions are vital in human life.

10 quotes:

1. "Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless."
— John Ruskin

2. "Maybe they didn't want you to realize that every civilization has its weakness. There's always one thing we depend on. And if someone takes it away, all that's left is some story in history class."

-Scott Westerfeld Uglies

3. "Everyone in the world was programmed by the place they were born, hemmed in by their beliefs, but you had to as least try to grow your own brain. Otherwise, you might as well be living on a reservation, worshiping a bunch of bogus gods."

-Scott Westerfeld (Pretties)

4. "Nature,at least,didn't need an operation to be beautiful.It just was."

— Scott Westerfeld (Uglies)

5. "Freedom has a way of destroying things."

— Scott Westerfeld (Specials)

6.“It doesn’t take much convincing to make someone believe they’re better than everyone else.” -Tally, Specials

7. "A nation of warriors and fanatics, marching forward in perfect unity, all thinking the same thoughts and shouting the same slogans, perpetually working, fighting, triumphing, persecuting - three hundred million people all with the same face."

-George Orwell (1984)

8. "Never again will you be capable of ordinary human feeling. Everything will be dead inside you. Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves."

-George Orwell (1984)

9. "Put on your pretty lies, you're in the city of wonder. Ain't gonna play nice, watch out you might just go under. Better think twice, your train of thought will be altered. So if you must falter be wise. Your minds in disturbia, it like the darkness is the light"

-Disturbia by Rihanna

10. "The greater a man's talents, the greater his power to lead astray. It is better that one should suffer than that many should be corrupted. Consider the matter dispassionately, Mr. Foster, and you will see that no offense is so heinous as unorthodoxy of behavior. Murder kills only the individual-and, after all, what is an individual?"

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World, Ch. 10

11. People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

-V for Vendetta