Front cover

For my front cover I didn't want to give away too much of what is inside of the book so that people would be interested to open it. I still wanted the cover to communicate what the subject of the book is so I decided to have a paint palette as the main image. I used water colour paint for the image then scanned it in, I decided to have the palette yellow as this colour continues through the book and I think this ties everything together nicely. I thought with the palette in the centre it gave the cover a nice composition and made it look striking. I also decided that I wanted to include big bold lettering for the title so it would be visible from far away, for this I used a hand drawn lettering style. I then added a little tag line at the top of the page to balance out the composition and finally added my name in a little black oval, I placed the name off centre to add a bit of movement throughout the image as this will guide the viewers eye around the page. When I had completed the image I still felt as though it needed something so I added a very faint texture in the background and this finished off the cover nicely. Overall I am happy with how the front cover came out because I think it looks very interesting and on trend.

Editing the Carrie's War photograph in photoshop: Front cover

I started off with the original image that i took in a studio with studio lighting.

 I then straightened the image up and changed the levels to make the lighting and shades look how I wanted them to, This involved mainly darkening up the image a bit and lightening the back of the image more. I then changed the hue/saturation to make it have more of an orangey/yellow glow like the back page does. I think changing the levels helped me to achieve the look that I wanted.

 I then added in the title of the book I decided to have it at the bottom of the design because I thought that this made the perspective look good, the text actually looks like its in front of the scene. I then added a little bit of colour like the image but I wanted it to be slightly lighter so it showed up well against the background.

I did the same to the author name but added it to the top of the image to balance it out. I think this cover turned out well after some editing on photoshop. It looks how I originally intended so I am pleased with it.