Book Covers

Initial Concepts:

Here's some of my sketches for the book cover brainstorming. After the first mind-mapping bit, I tried to take ideas and objects that I thought of and incorporate them into the covers. My original idea was to combine images with patterns that related to their content. So while doing the thumbnails sketches, I also thought of textures that might be appropriate for each one.

The concept is to combine objects that would not normally go together in a fashion that they convey the idea of the novel, without being too obvious. For example, with the "Frantic Family Cookbook," I am combining a clock, used as a dinner plate, with a meal.

Here's the sad attempt at the first round of digital renderings:

I used several stand-in internet images so I could get an idea of what it all looked like. So embarrassing, these are not good at all! But, I was able to make some decisions from these. After this round, I decided to remove the textures from the background. I also knew I needed to change up the composition of the page, because heck, these are not only ugly, but SUPER boring. So after Collecting a lot more images heeeere's what I've got:

These are scans of the printed versions, as opposed to the digital files. I think they give a better idea of what they actually look like, where the colors are too similar and need some work.

Food Preparation and Presentation: From looking at the print, it's obvious that I need to adjust the colors so that the bow-ties are more visible against the background. You can see that the images are very flat, and I like that style, but it's not apparent through all of the book covers, so that is something that I will be working on unifying.
Frantic Family Cookbook: This book cover is a bit different in the fact that the face of the clock wraps around the spine and onto the back of the cover, which none of the other images do that much. I'll bring the size of the clock down a bit, and also the fork, so that the idea of it being a plate is more clearly conveyed.
Don't Try This at Home: This cover needs a lot of work. In comparison to the others, it is not as full. Plus, it's hard to understand what the image is. I will be adding a bit of red to that piece of food to see if I can give it enough dimension to make it legible. It's difficult to find an image of nasty looking food in a book or magazine, since I don't think many people want to see that. The lines above the food aren't working, so I will be working to try and find a solution to that today as well!

Good Housekeeping's Family First Aid Book: FIRST I need to change the title so it is correct! While working on this project I seemed to have gotten the name mixed up, but I noticed it yesterday, thank goodness I caught it before the end of the project. For this cover, I'm going to get new bandages that are more legible. My goal is to find ones when the middle part of the bandage is more define, like a stereotypical one is. The ones I'm using currently are not as legible as I'd like them to be. Also, the bear is wrapping around the spine a little too much for my liking, so I might bring him in a little so that the spine is more bare.