Making a Mock-up

I chose this book because I felt it would be a good challenge to illustrate the cover given the complex subject. 

The Brief:

Create an illustration for a book cover for the title: 'Prayer - Experiencing awe and intimacy with God' by Timothy Keller.

The purpose is to update the original design for a re-printing of the book as part of a series for women.

The client would like it to be modern, abstract and suitable for a female audience. The final illustration should be sized 15.5 x 24 cm for the front facing image and include the original title, strap line and in a font that would appeal to women.

Client Visual Black and White:

Typeface:

I'd like to go for a brush script font for the word prayer and use the same colour as the original cover - copper. I feel this is the right colour rather than silver which suggests to me 'less than' and gold suggests 'showy', copper/bronze is more in the middle but still showing power.

I'm also going to keep the white text for the front cover for the strap line and author credit as I feel it fits the feel of the image best.

Colours:

I had a hard time deciding what colours to go with, since I wanted it to be feminine and not the same colours as the original. There were several looks I liked based on the photos I collected on my Pinterest board that confused me more so I started with the title colour copper and searched for colour palettes to match it. This was really helpful to narrow things down.

Moodboard:

I went for a light and airy feel as I feel it fits the brief the best.

Final piece:
To create the ethereal feel that I wanted I considered several ways of doing this, digital, painting etc and decided for the soft look I wanted I would use oil paints.
I am so pleased with how the finished piece looks, it has the wispy look I was going for with the sense of light coming through.
I used a copper foil font that I purchased on Etsy, credit to: PeDeDesigns

I am so pleased with the finished piece. I was really concerned with how I would produce the effect I was going for but this turned out really well. I experimented with different types of copper lettering, I found the glitter one too much and so went for a crackled copper effect. I think this works well to add some texture but not too much.

I am going to get this printed on a semi gloss paper for my portfolio.

Revisions:

Based on my tutor feedback I decided to play around with this design further to see if I could improve on it, try a different background and make the text clearer.

Firstly I tried a different background and it completely changed my colour scheme and I felt it didn't have the dreamy soft look I was going for.

Then I tried the original background with simple drop shadows, I liked it but felt it needed further improvement.

I then tried a stronger drop shadow using a dark indigo to compliment the copper and added a faded rectangle behind the bottom text to see if it would make the text stand out more.

For my final design I decided to use a soft purple for the drop shadows and played around with the size and the spread which gave a lovely soft shadow to highlight the text. I feel like this design is the best because it maintains my original ideas but enhances them in a way that makes the work stronger.

Mock Up:

Credit: https://www.graphicsfuel.com/dload/?dlink=2017/10/Hardcover-Book-In-Hand-Mockup

Client Visuals

Image credit: comicresources.com via Pinterest. Art by Andy price.

Image credit: http://www.comicartfans.com/gallerypiece.asp?piece=1030137 Art by Sara Richard

Scaled up.

Client Visual Sketch 1:

Client Visual Sketch 2:

I tried to simplify the sketch a lot and use the marks in a way to suggest the flow of the drawings. I left shapes for text areas.

I'm not sure how I could simplify them more without losing the feel of each one.

Viewpoint

Words chosen: Fresh and tasty Summer strawberries.

I struggled to choose a viewpoint as I liked these ones above the best. Maybe the first one as it shows one of the strawberries cut open and because it's a closer view of the strawberries it puts more emphasis on them overall.

I think the different viewpoints and arrangements definitely gave a different feel and message about the drawings and what I was trying to communicate. The further away the view was the less of an impact the strawberries seemed to have.

Giving Instructions

For this exercise I chose 'Making a cup of tea'.

I thought about the steps involved and the type of illustration I would like to make. I decided on making a poster for an office kitchen. I wanted to use a retro style and the finished poster would be quite clean and finished digitally.

I then created a Pinterest board for collecting reference images, font ideas, colour ideas.

I wanted to create a flowing effect for the steps and end with the goal of having the perfect cup of tea. The steps would flow like steam but they would start at the top and flow down to the cup.

I decided to sketch up my idea as a draft on A4 size and then show it to several people to see if they could understand my images and if it worked.They all agreed it did so I scanned my draft into the computer and loaded into a sketching program on my tablet.

I feel like some of the steps are hard to see still, even though I tried to darken the steam and re-outlined the images. I will attempt to fix this in my final piece.

I still feel like this needs cleaning up more, the icons look clearer but I had trouble trying to finish the tip of the steam and I'm not sure about the font.

I am new to digital illustration so it's a big learning curve for me. I'm going to continue to work on this and improve.

Abstract Illustration

For this exercise I decided to choose George Gershwin as I enjoy his Rhapsody in Blue and wanted to explore more of his music. I listened to a range of pieces and narrowed it down:

I narrowed it down to 'An American in Paris' because I like the feel of the piece and found it the most interesting. I researched colours and patterns, themes that would work with the music, the kind of feelings it brought up for me. I then narrowed down the colour palette to navy blue, cherry red, yellow ochre, lime green and sky blue. I felt these colours really represented the piece well, giving a sense of 'Paris', and the season of spring/summer. I wanted to try the abstract piece using Copic markers because they are one medium I want to learn to use better.

Here is my first attempt:

I really didn't like how this turned out. To me it feels muddy and hasn't captured the bright, fun feeling I wanted to portray.

I next attempted the exercise using acrylic craft paints, since this is a medium I am much more familiar with:

I am much happier with how this came out and feel it has some really interesting areas.

Re-created area:
My word is 'lively' and I used the acrylic paints again to get the right textures, marks and colours I wanted.

I chose not to add any further marks as I felt like the piece was 'lively' enough, however I did crop the area further to hone in on the parts I felt were the strongest and conveyed the message better.

I think this would look great for a cd cover for the music, it certainly has energy and vibrance about it.

Image Development

I picked these two stunning photographs from Suffolk magazine. I felt both images were really striking. Deciding between the two was hard but I ended up choosing the Orwell Bridge because I love the effects of the lights shining down.

The ways in which the original image was cropped really made a difference to what it represented. In some crops it was clear the bridge was still there, in others the bridge had no place at all. In some crops it made the bridge look very mundane and in others it looked more upmarket.

I liked a lot of these crops, in the end I chose 'peaceful' because it looked so different from the original image. I decided to make it into a gallery poster for a show opening. The original image was taken of Orwell Bridge in Ipswich, so I used that as part of the location for the finished poster.