In this week of our classes, I began digitising my final book cover design. The one that I chose to illustrate was this one:

I made this illustration using water colours and a black fine tip pen for the outlines. The watercolours allowed me to change the hues and pigments and show the lights and shadows easily without a hassle. The genre for this cover is fantasy. I chose to incorporate abstract elements and key aspects that might be the premise of the book to make it look more realistic in nature when it comes to a fantasy novel. I also chose to incorporate vibrant colours in order to impart the theme of “fantasy” and wonder, and did this in the form of a collage so that it looks abstract and less simple or direct. I then went ahead and began digitising it on Adobe Illustrator.

The Process

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I began by putting my physical illustration on illustrator, and dedication one layer for the base outline of the illustration. This would frame each illustration and make it look more cohesive and put together. After the outline, I began experimenting with the different coloured pigments on illustrator in order to show shadows (in the skin of the girls), illusion of light (in the traffic lights), etc. I got to test out different levels of opacity and different thicknesses of the brush tool on the software to bring out different effects and colour schemes. As an aspiring graphic designer, doing this made me a lot more adept at using the illustrator software and made it a lot faster and easier for me to utilise.

While making this final product I got to understanding a lot about the multifaceted stream that is book cover designing. I learned that there should be a sense of visual hierarchy to follow when designing the cover of a book. The main elements of the books are:
1. The title
2. The illustration
3. The author’s name
4. A short review on the front
5. A one liner describing the premise of the book

It’s the way the designer chooses to prioritise these elements in order to create the book cover design which is important. Some designers choose to put the illustrations as the forefront of the design and some chose typography, such as the author’s name or the title. I took reference of several types of books put typography at the forefront of the cover:

I then took reference of these covers and learned how designers play with typography and multiple typefaces/fonts in order to create their designs. At first I only experiments with one font, but then branched out and began experimenting with multiple ones in order to make the conform to the ideal design that makes the book look cohesive and not like a poster with the same elements. I learned that especially in book cover design, though it may not seem like it, typography is also as important as illustrations, and having contrasting typefaces is crucial for the design, too.

However, because I am focusing on illustrations as the main element of the book design, I chose to put it as the forefront of my final illustration, although, still balancing it out with the typographical elements. I took reference of these book covers to make mine:

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According to me, the illustrations in these books are though minimalistic, yet somewhat detailed. I incorporated these elements in my final product, giving enough attention to typography and conforming to the idealistic visual hierarchy of novel design.

The initial design (first draft):