Project Update: Independent Project

FRONT COVER DESIGN

first draft

The main idea for the cover of my publication was to have an avatar of myself to add a touch of personality and that I am the author of the book. As the indecisive person I am, I struggled with typography and the layout of the cover. I illustrated everything of Photoshop but worked on the typography on InDesign.

second draft

I then tried using the character illustration and background to fully cover the cover design. As you can see, I first had the pencil incorporated into the design but I decided to get rid of it because it didn't really have much meaning to it. I made one of the leaves bigger to accommodate the text but I was still struggling with the typography so I tried moving my character slightly to the side; to allow more space for the title.

third draft

I then felt like I needed the text to be in the center of the book. The previous drafts were mainly drawing attention to the character. So I sized the character down and shifted it back to the middle. This allowed more space for my title.

I freed up the space in the center so that the leaves would not get in the way of the text which could potentially disrupt the legibility of the title. I contemplated on removing my avatar from the cover and perhaps putting it somewhere in the book but after consultations and suggestions, I was told that it might not have the same 'personal' impact as it would with the character on the cover. Since the book is personal and written from my perspective, I chose to keep it on the cover.

Here is the final outcome of my cover. I think that it looks much better with the title in the middle, and with the character at a smaller scale. To add visual interest, I adjusted the placement of each letter where they alternate heights. The back cover continues the leaves from the front be I kept it less crowded as I needed to add the blurb. I also added my logo to look like a publication company logo, generated a ISBN number with bar code and added my website at the top of it as it it was a real published book.