Wonder typeface ideas

I wanted to create a typeface for my book cover as i initially wanted my book cover to have a focus on typography. I noticed in all previous book covers for the book the typography was cursive and had a heavy focus on the typographic element which is important in appealing to the young target audience. However, I wanted move away from the cursive appearance while still appealing to the youth through focusing on making my typeface have bold strokes, rounded apex, rounded vertexes and an overall quirky appearance.

From my research into clear but more original concepts to focus on from the book, I chose to look more into school and specifically Auggie's experience in school. As his main interest is in science and wanted to become an astronaut, I looked at what a fifth grader would be studying in class and took a specific line from the script as my main focus for this (Newton's first law of motion - otherwise known as law of inertia.) I took an image of inertia balls and flipped it upside down to use the representation of the movement of the ball as a basis for my typeface. I chose to flip it as i wanted a focus on the curve. 

I used the shape and then rotated it to fit together in ways that made geometric sense such as using right angles or having the shapes line up together based on the circle such as with a protractor. This was effective in creating a quirky typeface as they were different sizes. Creating an outline then softening and rounding out the apex and vertexes made this softer and more similar to a child's handwriting.

A second exploration into Newton's laws and what fifth graders were studying helped me create this second typeface. It was a much more simple approach in which I started with Futura as its the most effective in appealing to younger audiences as it uses 'ball and stick' and round stylisations in its typeface that is similar to handwriting that is taught in schools and is also kinder. However I rounded the apex and vertexes as they're too sharp to be as friendly as is effective. I then used envelope distort in squeeze and chose it in the horizontal effect as it relates to the idea of to forces actin upon an object. Overall the typeface is quite quirky however I don't think it's as appealing and has a strong enough personality on its own to be the focus of a book cover.

My third idea for a typeface is to be more direct in the focus on Auggie's interests in science and space and looked at a diagram of the Earth's orbit. This also represents a iconic quote from the book about how Auggie is the sun and the family orbit around him. I used the oval shape initially as inspiration for a mesh distort however this was unsuccessful as it would be difficult to make consistent and the resulting letter did not have an overall fun appearance. It has sharp serifs and vertexes which took away from the childlike, handwriting approach.