28th January 2011 - 18th February 2011

28th January 2011 -

After spending over two weeks reading the book I felt much more ready to begin looking at ideas for the book cover. However I had not yet came up with any well grounded ideas.

The book was a reasonable read and because of my background with an English Literature A level I was able to judge its content quite well, in relation to other books which I have read; old and new. This meant that I could have a better idea of what was going on in the author's mind at the time and why he perhaps decided to attend focus on certain aspects whilst guiding away from others. It was this kind of detail that I wanted to notice this week. I hope that this is what will make my ideas unique from other members in the class as the last thing I want is for my work to become cliche and blend in with other books sharing its shelf space. 

One of the most important things I wanted to look at in regards to the book was the intriguing beginnings where the protagonist meets his love.

I believe that the moments in the beginning are of the most important for drawing ideas from as this is really what the book cover should begin to tell the viewer. The idea is that the cover gives a short insight into where things might lead, but still leave a little bit of interest.

Drawing on the above factors I decided that I would have good think and a re-read of the initial chapters. I felt that between the second and third chapters would be the best place to pay attention to where the author still managed to maintain mystery. I underline the parts which I felt were key to building the narrative.

Initially though, I have struggled to put pen to paper and have felt like I have forced myself to come up with ideas. This in turn has meant that the ideas which I have produced have been limited and have not really progressed themselves.

Once re-reading the first initial chapters of the book I came up with an idea regarding the neon light for the diner. The idea was something which came into my head upon looking at a particular page in The Computer Arts book of Inspiration, Volume II. In this book, on page 67, I came across a T-shirt design by Trochut. His website shows some further designs of this series: http://www.alextrochut.com/#/works/lorem-ipsum 

The design which inspired me had actually came from a T-shirt design. I loved how the letters all connected, as they were supposed to look as if they had been written in mustard and tomato ketchup. My only worry has been that I am not as experienced as other people in my class at photoshop. it is a skill which I have not yet attained. This is since I have only recently acquired the program, due to a lack of funding, and a fear of it being too difficult for me to use.

The way in which I overcame this was by telling myself that I would have to come up with an alternative idea to produce the same idea; without a computer. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Mistakes can lead to a more developed final piece. It could also bring out my uniqueness.

As you will have been able to see in my sketchbook, I have produced a stencil of the title, where the letters and words have been linked as if they were part of a neon sign. This was one of the first things which I produced. It is the only other way in which I believe I can manually link the words and produce something like a print where they would all be linked. After spending cumulative hours on this piece I decided to begin trying to work on the same thing but in photoshop.

Initially I wasn't very sure about altering shapes, or even drawing them and it took me some time to realise that photoshop would not help me alter typeface shapes. I opened up InDesign and typed the text I wanted, in the typeface I had chosen: Santa Fe LET.

Once I had played around enough, which took me late into the night, I had managed to figure out how to change the letters into paths, select those paths and delete them. It took me another hour or so to learn how to use the pen tool to join path ends of different letters. It took me another half an hour to learn how to make the points on the path more flexible. I am still not entirely sure what these are called.

Currently I only have this shape which I have created and I will be working on it over the weekend in photoshop to make it appear more like a neon sign. Potentially figuring out how to colour it in photoshop and how to make it glow.

My website development has been currently been put on the back burner of all the work because I feel that developing my book cover has become a priority. This is mostly because of my lack of ability to create sufficient ideas and my incapabilities to explore these as quickly using photoshop.

I have also returned to University with a graphics tablet which has meant that I have also been learning how to use this along with photoshop. I want to ensure that I am able to get plenty of key skills learnt over the next few months. Especially with the website project. I want to be able to make my page quite visual. Photoshop will not be a key element in producing this, but enhancing my style and giving me a wider range of skills to work with. It will hopefully enable me to develop my drawing ability as this is usually limited by its limited reproduction. Being able to change a drawing and replicate in a variety of contexts will help me to progress ideas more efficiently. This is why I think that Photoshop skills will enhance rather than obstruct my more practical skills. I can then take what I produce and further develop it by hand e.g. prints, painting on top of it and being able to destroy it a bit (experimentally of course). The computer will hopefully aid me in the way of taking away some of the risk of destroying a piece. It will allow me to take one piece and look at it in multiple medias. Allowing me to be more experimental and give myself more freedom creatively.

4th February 2011 -

This week I have been looking at developing my neon light idea for the book cover. I have been further developing my photoshop skills alongside this and learning how to use my new graphics tablet in conjunction with the program.

I have learnt quite a lot about photoshop recently as I have been using it quite a bit since last weekend.

I used the path which I created using the typeface for the title of the book which I altered last week in InDesign, another program which I am hoping I will become more familiar with and utilise with other projects. Potentially I want to be able to use the program to develop my own typeface at some point. This is one of my personal targets.

Over the weekend I have learnt how to paint using my graphics tablet and photoshop. I transferred the path from InDesign into photoshop and selected the inside of it using the magic wand. I discovered this as a means of not going outside the lines and keeping them crisp. It also means that it takes significantly less effort to paint the piece and I can go back and concentrate on things like direction of light, 3d effects and shadowing. First of all I filled the lettering in with a crimson shade. I created a gradient by shading the tops of the lettering with the colour but slightly light and then shaded the bottoms of the letters with a darker colour. This acted as a basic of colour which I could work into to create a neon glow. I then drew a white, slightly translucent and feathered line down the centers of each line of the letters. Breaking at points where I thought a new line of glass may begin the other letters. This created a good effect. It was something I saw as a child on some art program where they were giving advice on how to draw neon lights. The only difference was that they had used chalks on black paper. Then they used a correction pen down the center of the lines of the words. They then pushed and blew the chalk outwards to make it appear like it was glowing. I tried to apply this memory to photoshop. Once I had created this effect I then used an outer glow to complete the look and a smooth inner bevel to further the shading which I had already applied in the painting.

I have been quite proud of what I have developed this week and how I have progressed my skills using photoshop. No matter how small they have been. I can use these skills again in later work. I feel more confident that I can go and use photoshop to further explore and enhance my work. Especially as it is so replicatable.

This week I have also progressed this idea for the front cover of the book.

As the neon light for the title is something which I have worked quite hard on I wanted it to stand out on the cover.This means that I need to keep the background relatively simple whilst also correlating it with other parts of the book. I decided that I should use darker colours, due to the crime/mystery/romance genre of the book. I also had an idea that due to the UK market, my given audience, it would be great to have some of the patriotic colours in the cover. So red and blue with tones of black and white seemed like a good option.

When it came to creating the background for my book cover I have considered the plot line heavily. I wanted the cover to seem intriguing and take from multiple aspects of the book.

I started with a paper, textured background gained from the deviant art website. I then altered the hue, brightness and contrast to create a dark blue texture which could not be defined as one specific thing. I then used the brush to paint some shadows onto the  texture. The shadow is deliberately difficult to make out. It is supposed to be so that it represents different parts of the story and that depending on how much you have read it should change your view on what the shadow is of. So initially you might say that the shadow looks like a man. This could be representative of when the main character is waiting for Cora to murder to Greek.

Towards the end of the book you might see the shadow as the blood running down the windscreen of the car and the moonlight bringing its shadow out on the car seat inside. By the time you have finished reading you might see the shadow as prison bars on the wall or floor of the prison from which Frank writes his story.

Once I developed this cover I then brought it in for a feedback session in the studio. The comments which I received has helped me look at my idea in less isolation, which is what I have done in previous projects and I have certainly came around to the idea of feeding off other peoples' perspectives of my work.

One thing which came out the response was that the other members of my class felt that the cover had a bit of an 80's feel to it. I felt this may have been because of the pinkish tone to the neon sign contrasting with the blues in the background. They also said that the cover was a bit vague about the subject matter.

This has highlighted a few problems which I fear I may not have noticed had I not bothered with getting much feedback. It has shown me that I have not given enough away with relation to the plot line and have perhaps been over-mysterious. 

When talking to Phil after the session I was able to gain some other opinion on the cover. This was that he thought perhaps there also needs to be some attention to the textured background because the information which I was attempting to convey was distracted away from by the neon light title. He thought that perhaps I should take the title away from the front cover completely and leave the small author text on the bottom. This would mean that I would be able to still maintain a bit of intrigue whilst also making the book cover a bit unique. To still keep the neon sign that I had created I would simply move it to the back left corner of the cover where it would gain more effect on its own.

Over the last few days I have been developing this into a full book cover and it has worked reasonably well. However I am beginning to doubt whether this book cover will be successful or not because I haven't really done much research on it. So once I have finished exploring it and making a few changes I have decided that I will do a bit more research and see whether that brings any inspiration.

Concerning the website I have created a Facebook group in order for my group to communicate better because I feel that no one is really progressing forward together and that we are all living in our own little worlds (evidence of this is seen right, please click the image for a closer view). I have decided to do this because a friend on another course has found this method useful for his own group work. It is also bound to be effective as Facebook is one of the main distractions of our age group so people will be able to regularly check and update the group at the click of a button.

Another reason for this is that I feel that when we have had group meeting that other members of the group are making decisions without involving or informing the rest of the group. This worries me because it is meant to be a group website and I want to have a part in it. As do other members. This just is not something which can be accepted if we have been expected to communicate and create things as a team. So I feel that a Facebook group would be ideal for progressing as group without having to be the person doing all the running around and relying on people to pass on messages. It also means that any discussions, decisions or ideas are recorded. Meaning there is less room for mistakes and the origins of ideas can be traced easily. It is to be hoped that this will benefit all of us and we can start to learn how to work in teams; as this is something which we have to deal with in industry on a daily basis.

11th February 2011 -

In the interest of furthering my studies I have invested in some more graphic design books online as I feel that my lack of inspiration has been due to a lack of research and common reading in the field which I am hoping to be employed in for later life. This is something which I feel I have neglected since I came to University and it is something which I want to resolve sooner rather than later.

I am also currently looking into a work placement over the summer for which I need to compile a portfolio. This will hopefully enable me to get some experience behind myself before entering into any potential careers. It will also provide me with better job prospects.

With the deadline for the book cover approaching swiftly, only six weeks away, I have moved significantly forward with my ideas. Since doing my research on current bestsellers I have gotten a better idea of the current UK consumer market and feel that I have let myself down by not doing this sooner as the lack of this research has certainly affected my ideas.

Since doing the research I have found it easier to think about how I should represent the story which I have been presented with. I have also frequently spent a few passing hours of boredom sifting through an online book cover archive. This has benefitted me quite well as I am building on my current foundation of knowledge (as small as it was) on how a book cover should appear. Although this may give me some biased views on what I should create it will also ensure that I stay close to my genre of book.

One of things which I have been trying to do this week is play around with different ideas. I have developed a basic backdrop for a book cover however all I need is the perfect image to complement it. I have used a textured background featuring some natural scenes (Something which I hope to create myself for later projects, to give my work a bit more of my own style). I have then used a coffee cup stain, gained as a brush through deviant art (another thing which I intend to create myself at some point, perhaps this summer coming). This, I feel, brings some element of the story back to the cover.

This background is complemented by my choice of typeface (Adobe Caslon Pro, italic) which is fairly simplistic but adds an educated and traditional element (complementing the era of the novel) because it is a serif font. This typeface does not distract too much from the rest of the cover, leaving room for some relative detail in other aspects.

One thing which I have found myself chasing is an idea to produce a silhouette, or multiple silhouettes. But I can't really decide what to create silhouettes of. So at the moment I am just following ideas which flow into my mind and run with them. Currently I have created a silhouette of Cora in a bird cage, as mentioned last week. I have also came up with another creation which is a silhouette of a woman holding a heart. She has a dress which drapes down from her arms. It is meant to be a classical pose. I had the image of a Greek goddess statue in my head, maybe because that's how I imagined the (protagonist? I'm not sure if he really is one... too naughty to be one. And maybe he failed just slightly on the 'saving' front) Frank to have seen her. Realising this thought process now I am beginning to think that this should really be written down in my sketchbooks. I also thought it might be a good contrast to have the shape of her own heart cut out of her silhouette. Leaving the idea open to a personal interpretation of her conflicted character.

It is to be hoped that I will be able to progress these silhouettes into something a bit more interesting, maybe something which doesn't wander too far away from the subject.

I think that next week I need to bring some more focus onto the actual website as I have been neglecting it for a bit. I feel kind of sad for that project because it hasn't really had a lot of love lately.

The Facebook group has worked out reasonably well and I think that it is definitely going to do what I thought it would. There have been images submitted about ideas and those images have had discussions on them (Click on left image to enlarge example of this). We are able to talk about current ideas and everyone seems a bit more confident to speak from behind their laptops. Definitely more than we have ever discussed in person. Especially with the few meetings which we have actually managed to attend with the entire group present.

The group has definitely became more of a positive experience and I do feel a lot more pushed to get some work done if I am totally honest (who really feels like doing work when you don't see anyone else doing any?). It is great to see everyone starting to be on the same page with their work and now we can start pushing everyone into action with the group. I can see this progressing now.

Other than that there hasn't really been a lot to focus on this week. One thing I hope to do next week or in a reasonable amount of time is to discuss my progressions in my work with some other people in the studio as I would definitely like some comments on the direction I'm heading in with my new book cover designs.

18th February 2011 -

This week I have been looking more closely at the website as I have neglected this quite a bit without meaning to. This is probably because the website has a deadline which is quite far away and therefore I have struggled to make myself realise that the work needs to progress. This is something which I usually do on projects and it doesn't do me any good. I sometimes end up rushing the end product. It is definitely an area where I need to start improving. I need to start looking closely at how much work I am actually doing, instead of coming up with reasons why I'm not getting it done.

One of the reasons I have found reason to progress with the website is that since the beginning of the Facebook group I have created people have been more keen to submit work to the other members of the group and I feel that am not contributing enough as I should be.

I am glad that this is spurring me on a bit though. Its definitely helping me see where I am in comparison to where other people are progressing. I always find that a bit of competition actually improves my quality and efficiency of my work. It is to be hoped that I will start to feel the pressure and get going on this project.

The HTML tutorials have not really been as helpful as I thought and therefore I have been looking at a library book which acts as a general reference. I am progressing much quicker than with the lessons and learning a lot more. This is mostly because I am much more used to getting my information from reading. This is the way in which I learn the most. Plus the lessons don't really get in the deep end quick enough. I like a challenge and I've already done visual basic coding for a self-created database system in the past so I feel ready to dive in with this. It currently appears easier than visual basics so I'm not too worried.

A few weeks ago we had a meeting between our group which I found difficult to chew. Two of the girls in our group had turned up, after weeks of very little communication with the group, and showed the group their designs (I'm not too sure who had created what) for the layout and header of the website. This had angered me a little bit because it was a complete surprise to the rest of us. We hadn't seen any prior work to this and we hadn't prepared any work to at least discuss other options because we weren't warned that this was coming up. One of the girls had already done some HTML coding for most of the home page. So obviously one of my main inquiries was where the individual input goes for each of our pages if this was to be carried through as the fluent website element. My answer was that she had already flatten the header image, was unaware of the typeface used and that the individual space would go below the header. Below the header was a 'torn page' background element. Although I felt that the work on the header was great, and clearly someone was talented, it angered me that there had been so little communication. The lack of this meant that the rest of the group looked inadequate, which was not the case. The method of communication is what had broken down.

To rectify this issue I have created the Facebook page which has promptly changed the face of our groups interactions.

This week, as I have been working on the website, I have decided to now bring in my own input for the group header and website layout. I expect that at this stage decisions have already been made about what we will be pushing on with. So once the group meeting has been organised I will be prepared for all of my ideas to be thrown out completely. However I feel that even if they are, that they can at least influence the direction which we choose to progress in on this project.

One of the things which I have been looking at is my boyfriend's collection of comic books. As discussed recently on the Facebook group, we are currently looking at constructivism and comic book themes for our website as we feel that these are powerful and energetic colours, reflecting the "atmosphere" produced by the website pitch video we have made. These two themes, as recorded on the Facebook group, are my ideas. I am a bit disappointed that they were challenged as not being applicable at first, mostly because the feedback on these ideas was not constructive. Members of the group did not suggest options to solve the problems that they had, they just knocked back the solutions I came up with unconstructively. Then, confusingly, accepted them (Please click on the image on the right to see a larger copy of the example of discussions).

Continuing on the theme of the website I have thus created some website elements (such as the header above) and page layout ideas based on the comic books which I have borrowed. Referring to these during creation I was able to create something which I believed to be accurate of what a comic book should look like as a web page.

On presenting these ideas I have been surprised at the actual response. This was because my ideas were accepted in replacement of the two girls' designs. They thought that my creations were good, which was also a surprise because I'm not as experienced at photoshop as members like Zoe. Her work looks really good and I was worried that she might notice that I was new at photoshop. I am glad though, because ultimately this means I have progressed following my learning ot the program for the book cover project.

Now a lot of the website header is my input. I have passed on the file I created, unflattened, so that each member can create their own flare to it, changing the colour, background textures and the logo which I produced for the main page. 

The logo which I created was produced entirely on photoshop using my graphics tablet. It was experimental, based on the logo found on issues 100 - 149, and came out quite well. I drew it without any prior thought, other than having a basic idea of what I wanted to draw, and drew it using my own hand as guidance. It is a simple vector image based on what I had interpreted from the comic books I had to hand, Judge Dredd. I am proud of what I have accomplished.

I hope that I will manage to maintain my input and progress my ideas appropriately.

In the meeting we were able to discuss where we all were on the project and to visualise how it all might come together. It was much better talking to the members of the group face to face. We all came up with aims for each other to give ourselves targets to meet.

Some of these aims were things such as creating our own comic book characters, in our own image, which would progress through each page like a story. Adding an exciting visual element for the user. This means that we would be focussing more on the visual content than the text boundaries. It means that we will have a good balance across the entire website. Maintaining the end users' attention throughout. 

We have also agreed that we will be featuring all of our characters on the home page, to unite each of the sections of the website.

As for the book cover I have not really looked at it too much this week and I am hoping that I can catch up on it at a later stage when I feel that I have furthered my development of my pages on the website.


Page layout ideas:


Initial ideas, before looking at comic books:

Idea after looking at several comic book covers. The four spaces are for each member's individual input (a taster of their own page).