Do Judge a Book by its Cover Week 2

Final Book Cover Design

Printing

• I am pleased with my final design. The colours were just as effective printed as they were on screen. The digitally produced image has a crispness to it and I chose to use a matte finish which I feel matches the use of ink.
• I was a bit worried about the sizing of the book cover as when I measured out my roughs they did not quite fit the book properly, it is a bit bulky at the edges. Because of this I added a few millimetres on to the final piece. Thankfully the final cover fits the book perfectly.

Feedback session after Week 1

It was evident from the feedback session that my final design would be a hybrid of a few of my ideas. The cover, spine, back and inside sections were taken from different elements of my roughs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y78FztTd414
The Whitest Boy Alive - Golden Cage

I really enjoyed the simplicity of the line work and characterisation within the video Matt recommended to me. The sequence was really playful and humorous. Looking at the way a variety of practitioners stylise their work was very informative to my own work and the way I look at describing a character.

I did not like the DEADPAN!

Following the feedback session I was excited to start exploring ways of illustrating an unimpressed 'deadpan', 'resting bitch face' expression. After a few attempts I achieved the look on a face that I was going for, to try with my chosen composition and design. When I put this particular face on to a body it looked more angry than deadpan so I merged the mouth of one face with another. I eventually got to a point where I was happy with the design and the face could be read from upside down. 
The final revisions of this happened on screen.

Separate elements

In order to produce the most effective forms of the character I drew each part a variety of times in my sketchbook, with the intention of scanning and repeating each element on Photoshop. This worked well as I could move the different parts around and play with posture of the little guy I had created.

http://www.brwnpaperbag.com/

Linda Yan was another illustrator I came across when researching different ways a face can be described. Yan's work reminds me of drawing as a child, the naive simplicity of the way faces are characterised with very few shapes; dots for eyes, triangles and circles for noses, etc. Her work still projects a beautiful sense of atmosphere and intricacy within this, which confirms for me the power of uncomplicated images.

Problems I encountered

• Keeping a layout playful and interesting whilst still following the requirements of the brief. Size restrictions and having to leave space for titles, authors etc. was particularly problematic when designing the spine.
• Which face? It is sometimes a bit difficult to know what expression suits the context of an image. In regards to this project, the face wasn't a main factor of what I wanted to represent. The best way of tackling this was to experiment with different faces to see which one was appropriate.
• Printing was a bit of a pain this time round as we haven't had our print inductions yet. However, I think that a finished image especially in the context of a publication, looks more professional digitally printed.

Things I learned

• I am proud of myself for accepting the challenge of reducing a face down, although it could have been simplified even further it was a big step to have a final outcome portray stylised features, something I that is completely alien to me.
• Sometimes a minimal approach is better!
• Developing my digital skills further was actually a lot of fun, I think I am getting the hang of Photoshop now and find it a very useful method of editing and resolving images.
• Characterisation is also a very capable method of communication and can grab a viewer's attention sometimes more so than a naturalistic approach. Subjectively, when it comes to image making I believe that technicality and detail is great craftsmanship and most impressive to the beholder. I am, however, learning that this kind of practice has a certain place within Illustration.