Photographing my Carrie's War cover: Front page

The front cover photo was harder to get right compared to the front cover as it was hard to light the image correctly as the house couldn't be too dark as the detail would be lost. This took a lot of trial and error, here are the photos that we started with. (they are slightly wonky but the final image wont be)

 This was the first photo that we took, the lighting was completely off and there was all sorts of shadows being cast on the house so the lights had to be re positioned to eliminate this issue. Another problem with this image is the tree positions, they are too far away from each other so there is huge visible gaps between them.  

 The previously issue was now resolved and I tried photographing the scene with the title in the photo. I didn't like how this looked because it was hard to see the title. I took the title off and decided that I would add it later in photoshop. 

 This was getting closer but was still slightly too dark and a lot of the house detail was being lost. Also the top of the image was blurred and out of focus.

This is the image that I decided to work with in the end because the detail in the house was nicely visible.  The front trees are not as dark as I would have liked them to be but I couldn't get the trees dark and the house light because they were quite close together. I think once this image is edited in photoshop it will work out how I want it to. 

Oranges are not the only fruit front cover

I used the letters that I made to create the title on the front of the page. Because the title was hand drawn I felt as though the author and quote should be done in digital typography to balance it out. To add some orange into the cover I created an orange band for the author name to go into. I then added a sad looking girl to the bottom of the page I feel as-though this gives the cover more balance than if it just had the text.  Here is a very rough digital copy that i started with only using text that I had scanned in. 

I  decided that this looked too plain so I re thought what should be on the cover and the composition of it.  this was when I decided to add the illustration of a girl to the bottom of the page and move the author name up to the top of the page. I also added the quote that goes on the front cover. There was also a shadow on the original lined paper so I re scanned some in to solve that issue. Here is those covers. 

I then decided to try out putting a thought bubble around the text to make it look like it was the girls thoughts. After doing this I decided that I didn't like it at all because it looked too clumsy and cluttered, plus I wanted it to look like a note as well as a thought, as if the girl has written her thoughts down, because there are a lot of notes written throughout the story.  

I went back to the second image for my final book cover design as I feel it was stronger being a bit more simple. The next step is to create the back cover to accompany this cover.

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

After taking my photos for the book cover, I decided to play around with the levels and the hue/ saturation to try and get it looking how I would like. I wanted the definition between the layers to be more clear and I also wanted to warm the image up a bit to make it look like it had more of an orange glow, rather than a bright one, I also straightened it up. Im really pleased with how this has turned out but the real challenge for me now is to work out how i'm going to insert the blurb and barcode into the image so it still looks good. Here are the images before and after they have been edited.

Photographing my Carrie's war cover: back page

I started to photograph (with a lot of technical help) my book cover design for carrie's war as this is a vital part of my design. It was very tricky as the lighting has to be perfect to give the effect that I want for the cover. As I have layers of trees making the scene look like a forrest the lighting had to be played around a lot to make the image have lots of depth and shadows. I decided to start by photographing the image that will be on the back of the cover because it more simple than the front cover image and thought it might be good to start off with a more simple image. Here are a few of the photos that I started with (They're a bit wonky)

 We started off lighting it from above and the left side but it made the image look too flat and everything was all the same orangey colour so we tried a few different lighting and camera settings.

 This time the image still looked too flat but the colour had improved as it was more white rather than orange. I want the original image to look white so it will be easier if I want to change the colours in photoshop when I edit them.

 This image was getting closer yet again but was not quite there because there was more variation and depth between the laters with the way that the shadows fell but it wasn't quite right.

We decided to try it with the light closer to the image and try holding up tracing paper behind the set to soften the light this was creating even more depth but it still wasn't there

we then decided to try with lighting the set with the soft box from behind and this seemed to be the correct solution because it started to look a lot better. There was also a dimly lit light in front of the set to light the front of the image slightly. Now it was just a case of getting the composition and camera angle right. Here are the photos with the correct lighting.

 This is the first image where the depth was really working and the shadows were looking good but the camera angle needed to be moved around to make the image central.

 The camera angle on this image is improved from the last one but not completely right yet so we got a bit closer and straightened up the edges more.

Finally after a long morning of experimentation and lots of different lights and techniques being used we got the image just right. The next step is to edit the levels and colours a bit in photoshop to help the image reach its full potential.

Oranges are not the only fruit Title typography

For this cover I wanted to use a hand written style for the title of the book, I decided this because im not that good at digital typography and knowing what looks good where and when I just write it myself things turn out looking a lot better. I also thought this would look a bit more unique and interesting compared to a standard digital font. I just began randomly scrawling the words from the title onto a piece of scrap paper. I then decided which style of lettering that I liked for which words. When I had decided on my favourites and the order that they should go in, I re drew them the way that I wanted them on the page. I then scanned them in so I could compose the cover digitally. The paper had a few shadows on when I had scanned it so I am going to scan in a new piece of paper and move the text onto the new paper background. I really like how it is looking so far, the next step is to add the illustration of  the girl to the bottom of the page, the author name  and any text has to go on the front. 

Book cover research: Eleanor and Park

As for the 'Oranges are not the only fruit' I am creating a pretty contemporary cover for a story that is set in the 60's I felt that it was appropriate to reference the book 'Eleanor and Park' by Rainbow Rowell. It is a romantic novel that was written in 2013 but is set in 1986. I am aware that 1986 wasn't that long ago but the cover very much looks like this is a very contemporary story. Two book covers have been released for it and they are both very modern and don't reference the time period that the story is set in at all. Despite this the book has been incredibly successful. I think it is a really good thing sometimes for older books or books set in a different time period to have modern covers to open the book up to a new younger market that usually wouldn't consider even picking the book up. In my opinion If this book cover had been done in a style that referenced the time it was set in, I don't think it would have been half as successful. I know they say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover but its clear that people will and do, do that because it gives the first impression of whats inside. I really like both of these covers and although I haven't yet read the book these covers encourage me to, and I think I will when I have some spare time. 

Eleanor and Park book cover, Image taken from:
http://pixgood.com/eleanor-and-park-book-cover.html

Emeanor and Park Book cover 2, Image taken from:
 http://pixgood.com/eleanor-and-park-book-cover.html

artist research: Fran Meneses

I decided to have a look at Fran Meneses or better known as Frannerd for my research for my oranges are not the only fruit book cover. Fran is an illustrator that lives in Berlin she creates very cute little cartoon style drawings that often are based on real life things that happen day to day. She creates zines, cards, stickers and calendars along with a few other things on her etsy store and also makes youtube videos about her life as a free lance illustrator.  
I received one of her zines for christmas as a gift and it really inspired me with this book cover because I was really stuck with what to do for it so I took a break for a while and sat down and read the zine. I really liked the scrap book feel to it and I also am a big fan of how the different hand drawn typography all works together on one page so well. I also think that the delicate line quality is really nice. Overall I just really like cuteness and the simplicity of her drawings. Here a few different drawings that I really like and a video from her youtube channel. 

From the zine 'Perfect tree shapes' Photo taken from From: http://frannerdsblog.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2014-07-
01T12:29:00%2B02:00&max-results=10&start=10&by-date=false

Image taken from:
 http://frannerdsblog.blogspot.co.uk/search?updated-max=2014-07-01T12:29:00%2B02:00&max-results=10&start=10&by-date=false

Image taken from:
 https://www.dropbox.com/s/s899uf5c88jfsqd/Screenshot%202015-01-06%2011.21.22.png?dl=0