This assignment focused on visualisation techniques and idea development strategies. I looked into photographic manipulation and how imagery can convey messages which incite certain responces in viewers. We were tasked with creating imagery to be used as book covers for a series of collective books called 'The Literal Series'. We were asked to identify a list of phrases and come up with as many literal interpretations of them as possible.The title of the book had to be the same as the phrase we had decided upon and we then had to make up a name for the author of this book. The idea was to come up with a design that was witty, interesting and based on the concept of taking common words/phrases literally.

 

Ahhh... this, dear viewers, is my lovely inspiration moodboard. It's called that because I took inspiration from what was on it ;) I loved the idea of integrating natural photography with portrait photography - I find the effect is quite dreamy and calming. Also the colour scheme (again, using natural colours) lends itself to this feeling of being at ease. Its all beautiful and tranquil and I love it.

After sketching out some ideas I went to Adobe photoshop and edited an original photograph so that it looked like my subject was in the centre with half an erased hand covering her strange hair. The original photograph (a selfie) has been edited here so that the individual looks as though she is in the sky; all of her features have been erased so that the clouds in the background are visible - thereby representing a girl with her "head in the clouds"  I chose to do this on a whim, just as an experiment to see what it would look like. I discovered that it looked a little too weird and moved on.

So what we have here, is the same strange photo of this girl with her hair plaited up into the style of a unicorn horn. As you can see, the photoshop work is quite poor and leaves a lot to be desired. It is, however, vaguely amusing and also the imagery that inspired my first front cover design.

If you're wondering how I went from 'idea' to 'final concept' so quickly and without any further sketches, its beause I could envision what I wanted everything to look like and was eager to make it a reality as soon as possible. I am told that's not the way to do things... but again, YOLO.

 

The narrative for the blurb was probably the most fun and insane part of this whole process to be honest! If I hadn't wanted to be a designer, I would have been the author of short stories.

 

Here I've just done some more experimenting - still working with the same photo, though I have erased the unicorn horn and replaced it with photographs of nature - mountains and leafless trees and whatnot. I've been able to resize everything and add other elements, including the clouds. The effects I added to these experiments reminded me of the stains left on paper by watercolour paints. This was what inspired my strapline 'she dreams in watercolour', which later lead to a whole narrative based on a young woman who spends far too much time painting and dreaming and not enough time in reality.

Development of alternative idea - I wanted to work with a more dreamlike and yet realistic colour scheme, so I went with dark blues and purples. These colours are percieved as quite calming and dreamlike, which I thought made them perfect for a surreal composition such as the one I had in mind.

 

This is my final design! Quite pleased :-)