Graphic Systems Finalisation

Presentation Board layout for my book covers. Seeing them like this, all together for the first time, makes me like them more as you can clearly see how consistent the system is through, especially with the addition of the spine set to the end of the line. All in all I am thoroughly pleased with the work on this project, and even more pleased that I actually enjoyed working on it. Overall I think that the set works really well as a whole unit, each one is obviously slightly different to the last as they are all hand made but the titles fall in the same place and the layout of the pages underneath are all similar. And the back pages are all pretty much exactly the same, save for a few different nudges in layout, but they all manage to retain individuality through the hand made feel & the colour scheme. The illustration I feel are strong, some more than others, such as the pigs head is perhaps a little weak, but as a set of illustrations I think they work brilliantly to capture the feel of the books & the style of the author and compliment both each other, and the colour scheme really well. I'm also pleased with the calligraphy type. Each one is really individual due to leaks & splatter in different places and the shapes of letters but due to style and positioning they look quite uniform with each other.

Graphic Systems mock ups

Part of the hand in criteria is to produce at least two fully mocked up books complete with your covers. So here they are, shot very professionally...in my kitchen... I went for my two favourite covers of the set, Walk in the woods & Down under.

Backs of both books.

Backs & Spines 

Backs & paper sides. For the paper sides I just used a flat tab that I drew vertical lines down, I think it works pretty well as an illusion.

Front covers

Front & paper sides, illusion in full working mode.

Fronts & spines.

Overall I'm really pleased with how well these have turned out, they look like real book covers & are effective both individually and together which is pretty much what I was aiming for so that's good.

Graphic Systems: Spineset

My spine set, as it would appear if all six books were lined up next to each other. (The yellow book has been edited since the version shown was created and now the black swan is the same as the others) I think this works really well, the colours are good, and I think they work particularly well as each backing colour appears again as the outline around the authors name, except for the white, but thats used in the name anyway. I also like how the titles have worked out, each one individual with its own splatter patterns but set in the same place. This really looks like an actual set which is obviously what it's meant to do so i'm happy with it.

Graphic Systems: A walk in the woods Completed

Another book cover busted out in a day, even though I had a crit all day at uni. Speed. It's getting easier now that I've figured out my system for setting up the files & getting things in the right place. I really like the colour scheme on this one, I think the green and the brown are working really well together and the yellow of the bears face really stands out as it's the only other colour. This ones got a leaf as the extra little illustration above 'Bryson' which is obviously derived from 'the woods.' In addition to this I've also added a couple of little twigs onto the back cover box as it was brown which made me think "tree." Overall I think this is another successful cover. It's slightly different to the others; as it had such a vertical illustration I had to move the bear to one side and have the text on the other but I don't think that this has effected the layout negatively at all. It just adds a little more variety to the set. The crit went well today, my designs recieved a good reception and the only problem that came up were the use of the grid to get sections like the 'Black Swan' logo & the barcode in the same place every time. So I edited my grid system and simply dropped the barcode and repeating text at the bottom of the back cover onto the master page. Problems solved.

Graphic Systems: A walk in the woods illustrated

So I'd had a super productive day anyway getting a whole cover done and thought I'd crack on and try and do as much of another one as I could. I read the first chapter and a half and discovered that about 80% of it is about bear attacks. So obviously I chose to illustrate a bear... it turns out I can't draw bears. I spent an hour and a half sketching really awful bear faces and then rubbing them out. So this one took forever to do even though it's so, so simple. But I'm quite pleased with the end result, it's consistent with the others but works on it's own as an illustration as well.