After researching further into children's book illustrations and paper art, and how I wasn't really happy with how my design looked once it had been bound to an actual book, like it would on a shelf, I decided to redesign this cover because I had time. I wanted to be a little more adventurous and crafty, and cut my designs with some textured paper that I had used for birthday cards. I am familiar with this process but I don't do a lot of it, so I thought again I would push myself for this brief and 'get out there' a bit more so I can get more back from this module.
I began with trying to get the design I wanted to create in my head, onto paper. I knew that I wanted it to look 3 dimensional, with having pieces of paper come out from behind the detective, and I also knew from all my other research, that I needed to have nice bright colours so children can interact with the cover and enjoy it. I decided to keep the design from my other cover, of the detective, but use it in a different way, because I still really did like the way he came out.
To make the design of my book cover, I purchased some textured paper/card stock that had every single colour you could think of, which was a lot of help for me because it meant I had variety to choose from. It also allowed me to consider what colours go with each other, as this is something that I had been struggling with lately even though I love colour and colour theory.
And since I had my designs ready on paper, I began cutting them out! I drew my designs on the back of the textured paper, and then went over them with a scalpel. I had to buy a scalpel from the college library, because I only had a craft knife and it wasn't sharp enough to cut through this card stock as it was much thicker than regular paper. I really enjoyed doing this as it was sort of relaxing and satisfying because I could see the shapes come to life instantly. It was also refreshing to take a step back from doing everything digitally, which makes me motivated to do more of it!
I also made my text with cutting out paper and this turned out a lot better than I had expected. I had planned to do this, but I was taking a risk because typography is not my strongest point, let alone making my own through cutting out paper. However I think the letters turned out fine. To save myself time and the pain of using a scalpel for too long, I only cut out one of each letter that I needed. For example, I cut out one 'E' letter when there are at least four of them. By doing this I was able to duplicate them in Photoshop, whilst keeping continuity within the typeface.
To create the detective and 3D effect, I used two sheets of paper with little sticky squares that allow you to stick paper together with a few centimetres in between. I cut a perfect circle out of the top sheet of paper, so that you could be able to see the detective pooping out from behind, as well as the previous waves that I cut out before. To make the background, I simply cut strips of different coloured paper out and layered them so that they made a grid like effect. This allowed me to have even more texture in my design, as well as some complexity and dimension.
I then scanned all of my paper onto my laptop and into Photoshop ready to edit. I didn't like how my detective came out so in the end I ended up copying and pasting the one I had made from my previous designs, and adding a cardboard texture as an overlay on top, so that it would blend in with the rest of the cover designs. I think it looks much better, and colour wise, looks much more complimentary. I enhanced my card stock saturation a bit more as I found that it got lost a little bit in the scanner, and duplicated some, changing the hue to green so that I could tie the detective and the background together. I also altered the tone of the grid like strips of paper so that it wasn't as harsh. This taught me a lot as I obviously had to change most of the hues to get everything to look aesthetically pleasing together. I am grateful that I can do this in Photoshop, but I will have to think about this again in the future in order to get the right colours of paper first time around.
As for the text, I also changed some hues in this to make it look like it belonged on the same page as the design of the detective. I really love how it turned out though, because it looks handmade, but also quite polished so I am proud of myself for experimenting and achieving this. Last year I was told to experiment and take risks more, and I definitely think I am doing it with this brief, or at least trying to. I think duplicating the letters in Photoshop helped me a lot, because there is a lot of consistency in the letter shapes now, which I may have not achieved if I had cut them out them over and over.
Then it was time to put everything into the template from Penguin, and add all the required texts and information. I wanted to keep the rest of the covers simple because the design is so loud in itself. Therefore I kept my text for the synopsis white and minimalistic, and to keep the same font for the title on the side of the book, I copy and pasted it, but added a white colour overlay which I found to be so helpful and I loved the result. I then traced over the paper cuts that I had cut out and added them to the top left hand corner of the back cover and I think this pulls the whole design together and makes it so much more lively and exciting! I am very happy with how this design turned out, much more than my previous one therefore I am glad I took the time to change it.
I think this design caters more to children, as it is more colourful, exuberant and full of life. It is also hand crafted which is something that children love to do so hopefully I can connect to them on that level. This was such a challenge for me to create this cover, but I am so happy with it and I think it is my favourite one out of the three!
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