Monday, 18 April 2016

Overall

I enjoyed creating these book designs. At the start I was hoping too much of creating 10 book covers in the space of time that I had, but from minimizing it down to 5 then to 3 to work on I produced something that is portfolio worthy. I learned new techniques for presenting book covers from using a mock up and I know what I want to do in future, which is advertising and illustration.

Originally I wanted to create minimalism for the books. That idea changed to symbolism after designing the "Watership Down" cover as I enjoyed making the black rabbit in the Rabbits pupil. It can give some sort of the story away without telling and would make readers want to read it. The black rabbit is basically the rabbit death god in their tribe. As most rabbits are fearful of trespassers, new environments and survival, the black rabbit is mention numerous times in the film and book. This gave me the idea of having the black rabbit as the pupil in the eye, to show that the rabbits are staring at death everytime, everyday.

This also helped when designing "The Last Unicorn" as I wanted something thats not just a unicorn. By creating a Unicorn skull from a real horse skull and adding the horn it shows loneliness, extinction, death and isolation. In the book no one has seen the unicorns for centuries including the main character, who is a unicorn. When people meet her they are shocked, amazed and sad knowing that she might be the last one. Skulls in museums or in history are shown for extinction of an animal and this ties in well with the theme

For the final book, "The Doomspell" it was a hard book to interpret as symbolism without revelaing the character. I have read the book loads of times and decided to use the eye as symbolism again. There are loads of eye in the book (Witches eye, the eye tower, children s eyes, buttons that are eyes) but I wanted something different. What striked me the most is that when a child in the bok has magic, their iris's change colour for using that spell, e.g. blue for flying, brown for killing curse, yellow for glow, etc. Instead of using just one colour I used different colours and gradients for the eye. The main character, Rachel, can have loads of spells and her eyes at the end have multicolored. This shows strength, power and mystery with just having one eye in the black background with nothing else to give away.

I want to keep on researching book designs in the summer and different mock ups for different medias such as leaflets, posters and even postcards. I enjoyed this class and finally have something for my final portfolio, which I am very happy for.

Thursday, 14 April 2016

Final Book Covers - Presentable

Here are my final book covers which look more presentable. I used the hardcover book templates from Graphic Burger, a site that has loads of templates for presenting designs.

I am very happy with my designs and will be used in my portfolio.

The Last Unicorn

The Doomspell

Watership Down

Blurbs

I thought to put this now incase i get in trouble in future. For the blurb text I got the plot and reviews from amazon. I will list them here for referencing.

The Last Unicorn - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Last-Unicorn-S-Beagle-Peter/dp/1631401270/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460641877&sr=1-1&keywords=the+last+unicorn

The Doomspell - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Doomspell-Trilogy-Book/dp/1858818508/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460644332&sr=1-1&keywords=the+doomspell  (I have re-worded the blurb to make it less)

Watership Down - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Watership-Down-Puffin-David-Parkins/dp/0141354968/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1460644392&sr=1-1&keywords=watership+down

Reason for this is to make the designs more realistic, and I thought adding a blurb and few reviews would help.

Last Unicorn Final!

I have finished my Last Unicorn book design. I just need to upload it as a mock up for presentation.

I have went with the radical black and purple gradient which goes well with my geometric unicorn skull and white text. I left out the book texture as the mock up does this for me and it would be too textured.

mock up THE LAST UNICORN

The purple colour sets a tone for this kind of book as it has more of drama and tragedy. The skull brightens it up a little bit, even if its a skull. I may go over the title and look for more fonts that look a bit more gothic in a way.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

The Last Unicorn - skulls

I am currently designing the last unicorn book cover. I still want the skull idea in the middle of the book but have hit a problem as I cannot do realistic painting on Photoshop very well. I drew out the skull, scanned then redrew again on Photoshop. The results was not very good.

Looks good for art but not for book cover

As this was a problem I looked for a solution. I love geometric designs of portraits (You can find it on my behance) giving them unusual colour. I haven't done a skull before so I gave it a shot.

Geometric skull

I like the geometric design with the different shades in large shadow areas. I will need to work on it such as adding cracks and lining up each shape. I will then place on the front cover of the book. May change the background colour of the book as I think red looks too rich against the skull.

Wednesday, 6 April 2016

UPDATED WATERSHIP DOWN

I decided to focus on 3 book covers that I have already roughly created. I couldn't do 10 books with my time frame and brought it down to 5 books and then 3 books that I can finalise. I have already finished one book, and will need to upload it onto a mock up book cover to make it look look more presentable.

For this book I got the real dimensions of a book design from this site http://www.datemplate.com/post_create-a-book-template_79967/ and I will be using it again for the rest of the designs.

For Watership Down I went back to the fur. As I changed my project from minimlaism to symbolism I reworked the fur. I got the fur texture from textures.com which is a royalty free site. I changed the colour slightly and darken it. I then added the eye and added shadows and a small light to make it more realistic and 3D.

For the back cover I just added text and had to add a box as the type did not stand out and blended within the fur.

My next step is adding the design onto a mock up book cover. Afterwards I will work on The Doomspell book.


Wednesday, 16 March 2016

Last Unicorn

I know that this is past my original schedule but I finally have an idea for the book. I didn't just want to show a Unicorn, or fields or the red bull. Since i changed my project from Minimalism to Symbolism, due to Watership Down, I wanted to create something that represents loneliness, isolation and extinction of a creature.

So I decided to create a Unicorn skull, withered, dirty colours and a dark red background. I looked at horse skulls on the internet and rhino skulls for the horns. I sketched out the skull and the placement of the horn. I already have a font to use for the title and author and the placement. My next step is to redraw this on photoshop and edit in a way that it looks old and deteriorated, similar to skulls you see in museums.

Sketch of Unicorn skull

Skulls are a great way to represent sadness, loneliness and extinction. Taking the dark road rather than the happy one of just showing the Unicorn doesn't go well with the style of the book. The next step is to outline the skull, colour it, place it on the cover and add shadows and depth. This should be done by the end of this week.

Rough layout of front cover.
 Not sure to add the spine or not.
Will design two covers with spine and no spine



Monday, 7 March 2016

Time, late, everything, what?

Currently my schedule keeps on mucking up as I am running out of time for a few things. This includes this class and not keeping a proper time management. So I decided to make up one for the end of semester.

07/03/16 - 11/03/16:   Work and Finish  Last Unicorn Book
14/03/16 - 18/03/16:   Work and Finish Wolf Brother Book
21/03/16 - 26/03/16:   Work and finish on The Doomspell Book
28/03/16 - 02/04/16:   Work and finish on Neverwhere Book
04/04/16 - 08/03/16:   Work and finish on the NightWatch OR The Reaperman
11/04/16 - 13/04/16:   Print each book cover and place in folder
14/04/16                 :    Create evaluation

I have left out some books to manage my time for this semester. Everything has caught up with me, but If I make a start on the Monday night and finish a book throughout the week then I should manage to have at least 6 or 7 books finished and finalised. I will leave out George Orwells Animal Farm as there are too many designs and none are original, so I have lost interest.

Monday, 29 February 2016

WIP, ideas and new design

While researching book covers someone sent me a link to a site of a list of books with their redesigns. Each book has its own style and forms a story on the cover.

http://www.fromupnorth.com/graphic-design-inspiration-1333/

I liked the design of "The boy with a tigers heart"  and thought to use it on "The Last Unicorn" book.  So much is happening on the front cover and generates the story itself which interests the reader.

For "The Last Unicorn" I quickly sketched an outline of the bulls head.  I was thinking if using the body but it was too long and short for the page.  Inside the bulls head will be two waves climbing up the side.  These waves will be the unicorns trying to escape the sea which was told in the story.  It also shows another term for "white horses" in other words the white from the sea.  At the side of the head will be a rocky cliff with trees to form the horns.  I'm not sure at this point to leave it at that or to add the main character  at the top of the head on a bridge.  It's a working progress for now but ideas will change once I get to use illustrator. 

Also going through my list I'm thinking of leaving out a few books as I may not have enough time or have no ideas for them.  One of them is the "edge chronicles" as the idea for that design might be similar to "The Last Unicorn" and want each books to have different designs. Again I might change my mind and have a go to see what I can accomplish for the design.

Wednesday, 17 February 2016

Book covers update!

I have been working on two book designs. One that went really well, and one that did'nt. I think this may be due to too much research on one book that I am stuck on ideas. The first book was on George Orwell's "Animal Farm".

ehhhh nooo
It looks plain, boring and not what I expected. I decided to leave this one and work on another otherwise I won't go back to it.

The second book design is my favourite. I redesigned Richard Adams "Watership Down" after I watched the film. At first I didn't have any ideas apart from rabbits, fields and trees. Then I noticed the rabbits speaks about "The black Rabbit" whenever it comes to death, sort of like the grim reaper in the rabbit world. As the book and film was very dark I wanted to interpreted this without giving much away. This is my final design;

very nice
It looks professional in my opinion, I kept to the minimalism by focusing on large parts of the fur and the "Black Rabbit" thankfully resembles the pupil of the rabbit after showing to some people. The text is slightly annoying me as I use the text installed on illustrator, so i might have a look for more fonts online to see which goes with the style and age (I want to keep the book the same age as it came out but with a modern design).

I think I will fill out the whole page, rather than just a square in future. I'm stuck for ideas for backgrounds and if I fill out the whole page, it will look like a book.


Monday, 15 February 2016

Animal Farm

I've been researching (a bit too much) on the book Animal Farm, to try and see how i can produce the cover. The story is somewhat similar to the Russian Revolution, and I want to use this as part of my minimalism cover. There have been some covers already interpretted that way so I need to make my one original from those. My favourite cover would have to be this one by Ralph Ellison as it has that russian theme with the colours, style and typography.

The book was banned due to having similarities to the Russian involvement and the British & American alliances with Stalin during 1943-44
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Composition_and_publication

I want to produce something like this, involving the pigs, the windmill and certain styles.

Monday, 1 February 2016

Notes from Books

List of messages, objects, monsters, political state, etc from novels.

Animal Farm

  • Abused at manor Farm
  • Mr Jones prefers drink than care for animals
  • went with other bad farmers
  • came home drunker one evening, animals terrified
  • night animal gathers for meeting by old Major - oldest pig when farmer went to bed.
  • pigs are more clever, horses strongest, animals follow suit
  • Old Major dying, wanted to say few things before too late.
  • "few of us will never know the blessings of a peaceful old age. Boxer when you have given the last of your strength, what then? what ever we produce is taken from us, stolen from us and sold. our children are born cold and hungry, look at them while you can. You porkers, do you know what the future holds for you. do we deserve such a fate? is this farm too good to support us all? No comrades. When the farm is rich, but we would never get our share from farmer jones. Over throw this tyrant, so that we can be rich and free. comrades, revolt! But remember when you have got rid of jones. Dont adopt his vices. We animals are brothers, large or small, clever or simple, now and forever all animals are equal. " - Major
  • animals starve as food is locked up. break in but farmer catches them. animals revolt and run the farmer out of farm. Snowball in charge gathers forces to go against other farmers that come to invade but they all defeat them.
  • All apart from Napoleon will stay out of the house. Snowball thinks of laws of animal farm.
  • Story similar to Russias change of power?
  • Napoleon and Snowball strive for power. Snowball about setting a good example, providing a power source. Napoleon wants fear and brings up a pack of dogs as his army.
  • army of dogs attack snowball, runs him out of farm. Napoleon takes over, puts the pigs at top, lesser animals at bottom. 
  • Orders them to work, lies about Snowball, calling him a traitor that he was going to bring back Jones.
  • Pigs breaks the laws (learns to walk on two legs, lives in Jones house, pigs get more food while others starve, kill off animals that can't work any more or against Napoleon)
  •  Pigs make deals with other farmers by selling their work behind the animals backs for food for the pigs.
  • Pigs become richer while the other animals become poorer and starve. beleive they are better than other animals.
  • All animals unite against the pigs after pigs changed law that they are better than other animals. They tear down Jones house with the pigs still inside. Basic revert to the start.

Inspiration

Minimalism comes in all different forms. My main inspiration was the graphic design Saul Bass and his unique style of movie posters. 

"Anatomy of a Murder"
http://www.saulbassposterarchive.com/gallery/film-posters/
"Schindler's List"
http://www.saulbassposterarchive.com/gallery/film-posters/


He uses very simple shapes to come up with the object and has designed his typography using Futura, widely known for the Pink Panther title.

The Pink Panther
http://www.chud.com/articles/content_images/117/PINKPANTHERcartoontitle.JPG

Saul Bass was an inspiration to artists all over and some have used his style to make their own movie posters such as Star Wars, Batman, etc.

Star Wars by Malakh
http://orig05.deviantart.net/f867/f/2014/143/d/5/empire_poster_2_by_malakh788-d7jgjte.png
Some artists uses new movies to make these posters such as The Hunger Games:

Hunger Games
http://deathlytriforce.deviantart.com/art/Saul-Bass-inspired-Hunger-Games-Poster-334092927

There are a number of artists that are inspired by Saul Bass designs, however I want to use this style as well as another artists style which inspired me to create my portraits a few years ago. Magnus Voll Mathiassen inspired me by his Rhianna portrait. While he used curves for the shapes I would use points, and was also inspired by my class when they took up the style. While they would use the smallest points of the shadows I used the largest parts and made up my portrait.

Rhianna
http://agentpekka.com/artist/magnus-voll-mathiassen/



































Wednesday, 27 January 2016

List of Novels I will be re-designing

10 book covers I will be looking at and re-designing:



The Last Unicorn

Reaperman

Watership Down

The Doomspell

Animal Farm

The Great Gatsby

Neverwhere

The NightWatch

Beyond the Deepwoods - The Edge Chronicles

Wolf Brother







Monday, 25 January 2016

New project - proposal

For this semester I want to design my minimalism illustrations for older books covers.  I want to give these books new design and hopefully create at least 10 at the end of the course.

I have always been into minimalism but never had the chance to explore it in college or university, so I created my own personal projects.  I started looking at celebrities and worked on their certain traits and leave the rest bare, such as hair, accessories, makeup, etc.  I then explored the geometric portrait graphics.  I didn't want to work on thousands of small details so I looked at large shadows on the faces and worked on top of a photograph to produce the graphic portrait.


For the books I want to explore the smallest graphic, the "less is more" approach to catch readers eye and to show what the book is about. 
I'll be studying some artists influenced by Saul Bass who created modern movie posters using his style.  I'll also be looking at minimalist and their design process on how they come up with that idea along with picking 10 old books to work on, some widely known and some that no one has heard before.

Minimalist portrait of Sarah - Hocus Pocus





Geometric portrait of sister