Book jackets

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book JACKETS


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ARTIST’S STATEMENT TO THE BOOK COVERS


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“ the book covers are to reflect the era of the books and the stories in the books.. They will have a hand crafted feel to reflect the uniqueness of the books. “

The design created and the materials used were selected to mirror the era of the books. The selected books are Georgian and Victorian. The ladies of the time painted in watercolour and hence, watercolour was used to style the book covers. Because the books are mainly women’s books and romances, pastels and feminine colours were used. The style of the books is old fashioned with a cottage, hand crafted feel. The titles were hand drawn and painted as were the author’s names. In creating the titles, I have attempted to reflect the mood of the story. “Wuthering Heights” evokes images of windy meadows so the letters were made to look wind blown. The “Little Women” title is prim and proper and upright much like the sisters in the story. On the other hand, “Pride and Prejudice” evokes images of ladies with ornate clothing so the title was made more ornate. The colours chosen for the covers also mirror the stories in the book. “Wuthering Heights” is dark and cold blue. “Little Women” is a warm lavender and violet and “Pride and Prejudice” is golden. The materials used were mainly ink and watercolour. Watercolour paper was used for the background using three watercolour techniques to paint them. In summary, the book covers are to reflect the era of the books and the stories in the books. They will have a hand crafted feel to reflect the uniqueness of the books. The process entailed some very subtle effects, for example, changing the hue of the authors’ photographs to match the colour of the background. For this reason, I provided a lot of detail in the description of the processes.


Early design sketches and first concepts

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SOME EARLY IDEAS “Some of the early ideas involved a minimalist cover but it was changed in favour of a more hand crafted look using faux calligraphy and watercolour painting.“


First calligraphy ideas

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Book cover Titles The title of each book was sketched and then painted for an ombré effect. The lines were not vectorised and the watercolour was allowed to run outside of the lines in order to retain a rough, hand made look.

The title of each book was sketched first, the outlines were inked and then the inner section of the letters were painted with an ombré effect in two shades. The outlines were not vectorised and the watercolour was allowed to run outside of the lines in order to retain a rough, hand made look and the translucency of the watercolour. The first title to be completed was “Wuthering Heights” and it was also the most fun to create. For this title, the cross bars, swashes and ligatures were elongated in one direction to make them look like they were blowing in the wind and the letters’ down strokes were elongated rhythmically. The palette selection was two shades of blues to represent cold, windy meadows. The second title, “Little Women”, was also fun to sketch and draw. This title was prim and proper and upright but rounded to represent the dress of the day and the feminine aspect of the book. The palette I selected for this title was two shades of violet. The violet colour was also appropriate. Since there are

deaths in the book, and violet is the colour of mourning. The “Pride and Prejudice” title was the most difficult to draw. I had a concept in mind but it is outside of my style, I found it difficult to reproduce on paper and had several attempts. I chose yellow and orange for the palette because I wanted the colours to represent the guild and gold threads that women had in their clothing at the time. With “Pride and Prejudice”, I wanted to evoke the glitz and glamour of balls and the lush riches of Pemberley House. With this in mind, the calligraphy was to be ornate with as many swashes and ligatures I could get possibly fit without the title looking unbalanced. Once I was happy with the designs, I scanned them to Photoshop, cleaned up the designs and adjusted the colour balance. I retained some of the watercolour runs for authenticity. The background was then removed to retain the titles’ outlines and painting only. These were then saved as transparent PNG files


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The inked and painted book titles.


The process of creating the Authors’ names and initials’ stamps.

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Authors’ Names The authors’ names were hand written and inked and scanned into Photoshop. Foam stamps were made of the authors’ initials and after stamping them on watercolour paper, they were scanned and turned into Photoshop brushes for stamping.

Authors’ names and stamped initials

The authors’ names were drawn and inked and then scanned. I created several classics’ authors in case I wanted to craft additional covers but settled on the ones that are presented. After scanning, the names, I took the letters and turned into vectors the ones I needed so that the same letters were consistent over the three book covers. The eyedropper tool was used to draw the colours from the cover titles to coordinate the authors’ names to the book titles on the cover. Foam stamps of an ampersand and of the authors’ initials were created next. The stamps were used to print the authors’

initials. These were then scanned and turned into Photoshop brushes and applied to the front panel and the spine. The stamps were created from foam sheets and glued on the bottom of champagne corks for easy handling. The ampersand was created for stamping behind the Pride and Prejudice title. Opacity was lowered on the stamped initials to allow the Author’s name to stand out on each cover. The font colour on the inside flaps and the quote on the back panel were also matched using the eyedropper tool in Photoshop. Each author’s image was changed to black and white and filtered in Photoshop to give them the same hue as the book background.


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Watercolour backgrounds In three different Techniques

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1. Watercolour stains 2. Watercolour wash 3. Watercolour wash with salt.

Each cover was painted a different colour using a different watercolour technique and then scanned into Photoshop and adjusted.


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The book jacket template was sketched and measured.

Each watercolour background was painted on A3 watercolour paper, dried and stretched. The “Wuthering Heights” background was painted as a blue wash with a stain. The “Little Women” background was painted violet and then salt was sprinkled on the watercolour, allowed to dry and brushed off. The “Pride and Prejudice” background was painted as a very light wash of yellow. In addition, quotes from the books were chosen to display them on the back cover. A short biography of each author and photo were found from the public domain for the back flap and a short summary of the story was written to display on the front flap. All the components of the covers were now ready and it was time to put it all together in Photoshop.


PUTTING IT 16

The three book jackets. On the left is the first mockup. On the right is the constructed covers.

“ The flat net for the books were created in Photoshop with guides and lines to mark the fold and crop lines “


TOGETHER 17

With all the components of the layouts on hand, the covers were created in Photoshop. I considered creating them in InDesign but with so many rasters, I thought Photoshop would be more appropriate. First, the background was added, then the book titles placed on the front panel. The book titles were then redesigned to fit on the spine. The author and initials were added to both the front and spine. Some decorative lines were added to the spine to add interest and give the cover an old world feel. The remainder of the text was added and the authors’ images were added to the back flap. The jackets were then printed and folded around the books.

The books used were chosen mainly because of their size and spine thickness. The books and some props were then taken to the small product studio in G06_2.13 and photographed. MATERIAL S USED • Winsor & Newton Watercolours • Derwent Watercolour pencils • A3 Watercolour Paper • Drawing pens for the outlines • White foam sheet • Champagne corks • Whitney Light Regular • Plain A3 paper for printing the covers • Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign Back panel of the book covers.


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Book Spines The book spines feature redisigned book titles, authors’ names, stamped initials and some decorative lines to balance the spine design.,


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Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Emily Brontë


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Louisa May Alcott

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott


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Jane Austen

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen


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