Eduardo Recife

 

I was advised to look at the work of Eduardo Recife on www.misprintedtype.com.

These were my favourite pieces. I liked the way that the illustrator combined photography, hand drawn work and digital techniques. I like the 'messy' look, whereby Eduardo has almost scribbled on the first image.

I may add some 'messy' paint effects on my book covers.

 



Other inspirational images

I found these images inspiring. I like the simple illustrations on the left design and the way the images have been laid out in a cut-out scrap book style. The middle design also has a kind of scrap book feel with the way the image appears to be cut out and the way the text looks to be pasted on. I will try to create a similar scrap-book, collage feel to my book covers. The design on the left is interesting in the way that they have positioned the car on the flag. 
I like the style of font used in the first two designs because they are informal, playful and light-hearted,
which would work well for Bill Bryson's humorous books.

I really like the colour schemes used in these posters because they tie in with the London theme. I would like to use a similar colour palate for my book about England. I will also try to come up with a colour scheme for each book, based around country. So for example, for the book 'Bill Bryson's African Diary' I could use earthy, brown tones to tie in with the African patterns and landscapes that you see. 

Back to the drawing board

 

I have decided that I need more illustrations for my book covers and also that it might be better to start with simple line drawn illustrations which I can then embellish  in Illustrator or Photoshop.

Here are my latest sketches.

 

 

 



Sara Fanelli

 

I was advised to check out the work of Sara Fanelli, native-Italian British artist and illustrator.

Some of her work really inspired me. I like the way she combines natural colours, papers and textures with bold colours. I also like her almost 'messy' collage style, whereby she paints over the top of her hand drawn illustrations and typography. I shall try and incorporate some similar textures in my work, perhaps old maps, which would tie in with my travel theme.

 

 

 

Book Cover Designs

 

Having sketched out my designs I began working on my book covers.

I scanned my hand paint sketches in Adobe Photoshop, then added a background of either a flag or appropriate pattern. I experimented with various paint effects over the top.

I added the book titles in a bold font and experimented with different overlays to blend with the background.

 

 

 

I am not entirely happy with my designs. I feel that I haven't really been able to achieve what I wanted to.

The hand painted images look a bit dull against the bright backgrounds. The feedback I received from others also suggested that I should have more illustrations on each cover to create a better collage effect.

I also feel that each design contains too many colours. I think I should work with a more selective colour palate in order to create more striking designs.



Rough Sketches

I put together these rough sketches of possible layouts for my book covers.

For each book I will use two iconic images that are related to each book.

So for the book about UK, I have chosen to use a cup of tea and a British phone box;

for Africa I will use a traditional African woman and elephant;

for America I will use the Statue of Liberty and a burger;

and for Australia I will use a kangaroo and the Sydney Opera house.

Initial sketches

I began by doing some preliminary sketches toward my design work.
I tried scanning in my black and white illustrations and attempted to colour them in using illustrator.
I was having difficulties because I have never done this before. I began to wonder whether it might be easier to hand paint the illustrations first before scanning onto my computer. These were my some of my hand drawn and painted illustrations.

Looking at work by other illustrators

I went to the library and had a look at the work of other illustrators. I found two that were very relevant to the work that I am hoping to do. Patrick Morgan combines hand drawings and digital techniques. I like the way

that he leaves sections of this illustrations uncoloured, which helps to emphasise the hand drawn nature of his work. I also like the work of Beatrice Sautereau because her illustrations have a humourous, quirkly look.
It would be nice if I can create illustrations that have personality like these here.

Inspiring Illustration

I stumbled across this lovely illustration on Pinterest by LoveLoveMeDoDesigns.

I really like the combination of simple black and white illustrations and colour. I would imagine
the illustrator scanned the drawings and then worked on them in illustrator. I like the combination

of hand drawn and computer generated work.

Style Inspiration for my books

After deciding that I would like to use collage and bold colours in my designs I began to get inspiration from other designers work on Pinterest. Here are some of my favourite pieces with a travel theme.

I began to think that perhaps an illustrative collage style might work really well for my book covers.

I like the way that the illustrator above has combined old and new,
with a rustic background and bright contemporary colours.

I like these very much. My favourite is the top left London poster,
I like the illustration style and the font choice. 

I thought that these collection of posters were inspiring in the way

that they work together well as a collection.

Book Cover Research

Once deciding on my author and four book titles 

NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND

BILL BRYSON'S AFRICAN DIARY

BILL BRYSON DOWN UNDER
NOTES FROM A BIG COUNTRY

I began by looking at the existing book covers of these titles.
I particularly like the use of bold colours and the collage effect, which I may use in my final design.
When looking at the current book covers I noticed that there wasn't much of a house style so it would be nice to work on that in my project. The book cover designs are fun and lively to compliment the content of the books which tends to be humorous and light-hearted.