Graphic Design 1 OCA: book cover design part 2

I spent another day on this project trying to design a few good covers from which I would like to choose only one.
All of my illustrations are still in progress therefore I cannot make decision about where the title and the name of the author will be.

First idea is based on technique called collage. I used the drawing of monkey in the foreground, than I placed pink and green colours as a background. I tried to build a tree from scanned cardboard pieces. I still need to work on every part of this illustration.

illustration number 1

illustration nymber 2

Second idea is very simple, based on ink and pen drawing. I created a portrait of man that could be Dr.Moureau however; I did not want to say that. I would like to live this to a personal interpretation. I used he image of island that I took in Spain last year and changed it into an ink drawing in Photoshop.

illustration number 3

Third illustration came from an idea of monkey in a man’s mask or man in monkey’s mask. This is just a first stage of this possible illustration but from the beginning, I know that this does not look well. I am not going to continue my work on this illustration.

illustration number 4

Sketch for this illustration came from an idea of man’s face with some scar that reminds of his hard life. Some sort of an interesting and mystery part of his personality. I wanted to make his scar in the shape of an island. His eyes should look tired and angry at the same time.

I will see if I come back to this idea.........

.........After a few days of not working on this exercise , when I thought that I have explored all my ideas I took my sketch pad and draw another illustration.

I took this course more seriously after receiving my tutor report from the assignment nr.1. Therefore, I came up with another illustration that I will work longer.

This is such a simple idea, but I like it so much. There is an island build on an open mouth, so wild and unpredictable that the reader will get a shivers just from folding this book (I hopeJ). I draw a couple of palm trees to make it more visible.

I used the blue fragment of my old painting to create a nice colour and texture for a sea.

I am not sure do I like this version of dark colours. I know that I would like to build this atmosphere of mystery by using different textures and colours. However, this is not the best that I can do!

I decided to take some of the colours from the island and see how it looks like. Hmm, I am still not sure about this illustration.

My next idea was to keep it as simple as I could. Therefore, I left only dark colour with hot red tongue and some flames on the sky. I left only one blue part of the sea and the rest I made black.

I am more and more happy with the look, however I thin that I do not need this sky to make my illustration visible. Now when I removed it and replaced it with this simply white background I am starting to like it.

I have also changed the structure of the main wave; make it more dangerous by adding that black dark colour. I decided to reduce the amount of blue lines to keep it simple and clear.

I knew that I would like to have a framed illustration on the front cover, therefore I used thin black and bit thicker white one.

I changed the colour ob white border into the purple that looks more distinguish.

Now I have to make a decision on the logo for my imaginary book publishing.

I came up with an idea of “Tree Publishing” or “The Giraffe Publishing”. I think that I should go with the second idea.

Now when I am almost happy with the front cover it is time for me to design the back.

design 1 design 2

design 3

I spent quite a lot of time to design the back of this book. I wanted to have a stylish cover and be able to produce a range of books. I know that they need to look like they come from the same publishing so I have to be happy with my first accomplished design. The design nr.1 looks good to me but beside the colour of the purple border, there is nothing from the front of my book. The design nr.2 is closer to my expectation but it looks to busy and I am afraid that the description of the book may disappear. Than I decided to go with the black wave from the front, design and that will leave some space for the book description. So far, I really like it J