I worked on some fantasy scary trees in Illustrator.  Below is a screen shot of four I made.  I experimented because I wanted to get my head round what tools I could use to design my book cover and of which would be relevant.  These below were pretty simple to make using the knowledge I already had.  

Below here is my brushes panel.  I made a brush by taking the pen tool (P) and drawing a simple slim triangle.  I then created several layers and named them according to their colour.  I separated the triangle into 4 different parts each with a different shade of brown to create texture and realism.

 So then I had a triangle with different colours in.  I grouped them all then dragged them to my brushes palette to create an Art brush.  From here I could create any shape using my brown triangle as the brush.  The idea was that this would be my tree trunk.  The branches were simply used from the same brush for the tree trunk I made,  just made a lot smaller to maintain proportion.

                                                                           

Here is a colour palette of the different browns I used for my tree.

Below is my brushes panel with a green leaf shape.  I designed this using the ellipse tool (L) and pathfinder.  Again I used a few of the same colour, this case being green to visually look more natural.  I used this on my branches as a SCATTER,  brush but even after changing the spacing settings, size etc It did not fit into my design.  So, I came up with a better idea using watercolour brushes.  The one I used is the second one from the bottom in tis image.

Below are my final four trees.  I used the pencil tool (N) to scribble just above the branches then applied different watercolour brushes that suited.  Changing the size of the leaves depending on how high/short the branches were etc.  I set the transparency level to 60% because they don't need to stand out that much.  I used a varied colour palette of greens,  almost going into a very dark yellow in some of them to create a kind of mysterious/odd effect.  This is because these tree designs are based on the scene the 'Wild Wood'.  

 Below are 3 more trees that I just copied.  I changed the size of them and made set the transparency level to 40%.  I placed them behind the originals to create more of a landscape.  Like a forrest.  The screenshot below is placed over 2 blue lines which are guides and represent the spine of the book.  I grouped these trees below so I had a 7 trees as one object.

Again below here the screenshot is set over the whole book cover but if I do choose to use these tree designs in my final idea they will be laid out differently.  Possibly just covering the front cover.  I just simply multiplied the above image of the 7 trees x8 to get 56 trees in total to create a landscape.  Again I re-sized them, changed their opacity levels and sent some of them to the back (shift + apple + open bracket).  These are not finished, just how far I have got.  Difficulties were the grouping of the trees and their content on them as each watercolour leaf was separate from the tree base.

This is one basic, simple idea to play a part for my Wind in the Willows book cover.  After getting to know more about the story, it was apparent to me that Toad plays quite a leading role within the story.  I thought it was relevant to include Toad somehow into my book cover.  By doing this I am currently researching how he lived, his interests and lifestyle to make some visually imagery from this.  I know that Toad is wealthy and inherited money from his father and he loves to drive his car.  I am doing the same for Ratty and Mole.  Below is a Toad drawing I produced on Illustrator.  He is holding up his top hat and stick with a quite open representative pose.  This represents Toad's personality as being a kind hearted, happy animal.  I have then used various brushes at different weights and transparency leves to develop light and darks on his head.  On his waist coat I have given it a rough pattern/texture and used the brushes over the top at lower opacity.  This was so you can still see the pattern through the colour.

I have chosen The Wind In The Willows for my project brief because I am not overly familiar with the storyline.  I feel that this gives me an open mind on reading the book and getting to know the characters to influence my final book cover design.  Also i know it's a children's book and from looking at book covers I can see that the designs/illustrations are quite playful and clearly reference the book.
It is also pretty clear that numerous book covers have been designed since it was first published in 1908.  This means to me I have to get the right balance of originality since all the book covers are all similar, whilst maintaining the clear identity of The Wind In The Willows.


 Most of them use soft/watercolour based colours which I think works really well using this style on river banks and the river.  This is because It gives a fairy tale look about it, quite mysterious and unusual.  The book covers in general do say something about the characters.  Toad looks rich as he inherited money from his father and certain imagery suggests this too which are in my sketchbook.  They also have a lot of depth to them which I think is worth thinking about in my own design(s) as I think it can mean the book with-holds more than It looks.  It also suggests a sense of adventure ahead too.  Another thing I have noticed is that there is a lot of attention to detail throughout my collected research I have in my sketchbook.  This adds clarity and I find this visually interesting.  I have now got to think about if this is something I will follow along with too,  however I yet to experiment with different types of media and what fits with what.  Only being a week in, ideas at this stage are still distance however I do have a slight design concept as how It could look like in my head.  These are likely to change when I start to sketch and experiment with different medias such as charcoal, paint, acrylic, pencil, pen etc.

Typography in the book covers are all different to a certain extent whilst still remaining pretty similar.  Some of this includes different thickness, kerning and italics.  The typefaces reflect the great success the book has had since it was published over 100 years ago.  It adds clarity and is just a classic!  I also need to experiment with different typefaces and play around with them in Illustrator.  As I've said i want my design to be striking so I would like a typeface that keeps the book's identity with a certain edge to it but I yet to do this.  I have found a few Wind In The Willows type faces that people have made to give me an idea and put me on track.  I found one by someone called Ashleigh Brown who is an illustrator.

FdA Digital Media Design

Book Cover

Pitch Monday 3rd December 9:30am

Crit Monday 7th January 2013 9:30am

Hand-in Date/Time Friday 11th January 2013, 4pm

The Brief

Design a book cover following a supplied competition brief (The Penguin Design Award)
Then adapt this design into an A2 Poster, advertising the re-launch of the book.

We have a choice of two books to re-design which are 'The Big Sleep' and 'The Wind In The Willows'.

My choice is The Wind In The Willows.

This design needs to be visually striking and imaginative.  The front cover will need to work on it's own as well as being together and be visually pleasing on a poster at A2 size.

Final Design solution to Web 2.0 Propaganda Poster

This is my final design poster to Web 2.0 Propaganda Poster.  Overall I am very pleased with my poster and how it all came together.  This is all because I had little knowledge of adobe Illustrator,  I barely knew how to use any of the tools to a respectable standard.  I have learnt a great deal in this programme and I am happy with myself.  The poster i choose to base my mine on was visually hard to understand in my own style,  so I took certain elements such as layout, composition and colour and took them into my own design. I liked the way I could visually create where light hits other objects i thought it looked quite realistic. However,  attention to detail is what I will take away with me for future projects as i think this is something i lack in and could be useful. 

Type Faces 

Ever since i started my poster i have had problems with what font to choose,  do i make my own or what?  I Have had lots of different type faces that would fit in with my poster but not all of those are similar to the original.  Below here,  I have a list of different types which i have all tried in Illustrator but i think Aspire DemiBold fits best.  But i have very recently came across fonts such as CF metropolis and DK himmelblau.  This is because that complement the original poster in a way that my style can be recognised.  I made it a beige colour as the original to keep the same identity and on the dark red background with an added texture which was of a marble surface.

This was my first font i wanted.  Aspire DemiBold.  I was working with this font since near the start of the project as i had continually failed to find a type face similar to the original.  However,  I do think think even though this isn't even nearly the same as the original design,  It fits my poster.  This is because I can re-size these to my desire and It will look as good as it would of.  The flow of the text gives a sense of quality and reference.

This is my final Typeface and it is called DF himmelblau.  I have chosen it because yes,  It does look like the original but also the composition of the poster fits perfectly with it.  It reflects my own graphic style and the time period of the original I'm basing it on.  I decreased the size of the 'And serve in' to emphasise joining the army of Facebook which is my chosen Social Media and aspect of recruitment.

This typeface is called Reynold Contour.  I was keeping my thoughts and options open as i thought this would fit well for my slogan '1 Billion become One'.  This is because it is a very slim font and does create impact and exaggerate any of parts of the title that i would of liked of.

 This typeface is called FancyPants NF.  I soon discovered that this font is way too playful and out of 1900's - 1950's time period.

Poster Changes since Crit

Since our Crit on monday 5th November i have made changes and progressed through my poster developing a feel for graphic style and problem solving.  Down below is an added texture that was an image of a marble surface.  I simply selected my background i wanted to place my texture in, Copy and paste in front (cmd + C then cmd + F).  I then placed my chosen texture in-between the two backgrounds and made the texture transparency panel to Overlay and Opacity to 40%.

This was a smart move as now i have this in my background.  The texture gives a rough feel and reflects not only my chosen poster but the time period too.  I was making these changes after our Crit and people thought i should include textures.  I agreed on this as these were my plans anyway.  I think the background after these changes complements the sun very much along with my poster title too.

Another one of my recent changes is the gradients on the countries using the gradient tool.

 However the image grab above was not easily done.  I experimenting on illustrator on how to control the gradient more to my needs since the light source being the sun is coming from the left.  I then discovered a gradient tool which allows me to do so.  

Having discovered this tool,  I could now control where the lighter and darker parts of the gradient were manually.  By dragging the circle i could have the dark gradient at the top, side, bottom wherever.  This was really good for me as i could now do this to greater detail than the default gradient slider tool can.  This part of my poster now looks like the lighter part of the green land is being shined on by the sun.

Crit Feedback

• Different title font to fit original 
• Yes or no to map pin point?
• Re-placement of pin point
• More outer glare from the sun 
• Yes or no to F plane drop shadow?
• Different land gradients of green to present where light hits from the sun
• Include textures over background and earth shape to bring poster to life

Crit- 5th November

We presented our final poster ideas to the class.  This was interesting because this was to gain positive/negative feedback from everyone which i was open to both as i thought this was a very helpful process.  I am pleased with my poster so far but still have touches to add.  One of the most spoken about points of my poster was my typeface reading 'Serve in the Facebook Army'.  People said it wasn't  close enough to the original and didn't fit the time period.  However i think it does fit using Aspire DemiBold.  This is because the way the font flows.  It's appearence exaggerates the message to Serve in Facebook and become one.  Everyone seems to like the idea of the Facebook 'F' tipped on it's side to make a War plane which is good because i thought this was simple but effective, creative idea.  I had a map pin-point on my poster in one of the countries representing Germany as France were enemies in WorldWar 1.  Mixed feedback was recieved of this element which was helpful because some people came up with ideas like turning it side ways slightly to maintain composition and flow.  Re-sizing it was also an option too.  As i have not quite finished my poster yet, i have added textures in the mean time which i think reflected the time period of 1917 when the original was made.  On the background i placed a marble effect image to get a darker large grainy feel to it to bring it to life.  Overall from my feedback i have now reduced the drop shadow on my War plane quite drastically to reduce glare on the background as this seemed to only draw your eye to the plane.  I have also added lighter to darker gradients where I think was appropriate as there is a light source, being the sun this is because it's more realistic - brings the poster and it's elements to life.  This process was very helpful overall as i could see what other people were doing, what tools they were using that were different to me and how their graphic style and imagery differed too.  That was helpful as i could now learn from this and include such things in my own designs.  It was interesting to find out what people thought of my poster and suggestions and techniques were very much appreciated.