I chose an illustrated book cover of Alice in Wonderland by Ralph Steadman. Famous for his Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas illustrations. His drawing of the rabbit uses a lot of line and is done with pen and ink. Steadman uses messy lines contrasting with the border that the rabbit is stood on. The border appears to surround the typography in the middle of the page. The style is modernising the Victorian appearance of the old Alice in Wonderland illustrations.

The book cover reminded me of Shepard Fairy’s posters, a graphic designer and artist. I found this poster from his ‘Make Art Not War’ collection. I think the two are similar in style, the border used on both looks very similar in aesthetics. The typography is enclosed in their borders and the colour scheme uses black, red and off white. Both have the appearance of Russian Constructivist Propaganda posters. They also appear to be influenced by Art Nouveau, Mucha and William Morris. I see this in the design of the borders used in both works.

In contrast, the scale of each piece is largely different as Shepard Fairy’s poster is painted on a wall. I would also say the book cover isn’t as bold in colour and has an older style compared to the poster which uses thicker lines in the drawings. If you study each image in depth you can see they have taken inspiration from similar sources. However, they are both individual designs from different disciplines.