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