Response: Book Covers

So I know my critique this week is also about book covers, but I found the in class critique yesterday interesting so I want to respond to it as well. It was definitely interesting hearing design things from book publishers. For instance, I was surprised by their reaction to white covers and how they were not desirable. When they first said how dark books get scuffed up easily I thought they would definitely want lighter and even white books. While they wanted lighter books, they absolutely did not want white (unless it had a border). This was because when the sleeve is uploaded to Amazon and other online sites they do not put a border around the image. Therefore, a white cover looks like awkward floating text. I would have never even thought twice about that. Overall the experience was really cool. I definitely never though it would be that hard or time consuming for book covers to be selected. There was a lot of debate over some sets of designs while others (like mine) were unanymously voted on and selected easily. I'm glad that's how mine went, because I definitely liked their choice.

Critique: Book Covers

This week I finally got my book covers together. As beautiful as my hand drawn covers were (not!), I finally put them together on the computer. Of the three covers that I made this one definitely has to be my favorite, not to mention the one that took the most time:

I had a lot of fun getting to draw the pinup girl. I haven't had much work with illustrating people, and I really wanted to try it out for this. I definitely want to go back and fix up her facial features for next week. I also need to fix a bit of the type placement and will probably choose another typeface. Overall, I think this is a solid start. For tomorrow, I will also have potential radio show covers. I have chosen the photos I want to use but will be putting the covers together today. I also will add more to my online portfolio so that it can be critiqued next week.

Response: Book covers

This week we had to do our 20/10 assignment of 20 books covers. Unfortunately I don't have an image for this, but for the class just re-visualize my fantastic drawings from class on Tuesday.
Overall, I learned that I am definitely one of those people who has two good ideas, hits a few just so-so designs, then achieves greatness. I definitely need to brainstorm a lot of ideas in order to come across a final product.
This is reflective in the classes votes for my designs. I am going to be redesigning things from all different ideas. Some on the more patriotic designs were chosen, but at the same time a lot of people liked some of my pin-up girl ideas. I'm really happy with this because I want to be able to come in with a lot of different possibilities for the publishers. I feel like with more variety I will bring more potential covers for the publishers. I just hope I am able to execute all of my ideas on Illustrator. This will definitely give me a lot of practice with illustrations.