Hello,
Well here’s my final piece, a digital mock up of my book cover that was made with what I’ve learnt so far.
Any thoughts?
Thanks,
Louise
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Pre-Final Cover
So after some effort, I came up with the following design. 6 photos in total were used and manipulated in Photoshop, with the Celtic inspired border created in Illustrator. The cover was then finalised in InDesign.
I would appreciate any constructive feedback to help improve the design before submitting it for marking.
Thanks,
Louise
Book cover sketch
Hi there,
I’m finally back!
Well, after some research and creative thinking techniques, this is the sketch I came up with for the fantasy novel book cover. I’ll be using my own photos to create this into a photo-media project. Stay tuned….
Specifying a project brief
Hi there,
For this task, I was required to create my own design brief for a photo media project that I’ve chosen, a fantasy novel book cover.
The objective: To create a book cover for a fantasy novel
Target Audience: 12-17 y/o, fantasy book fans
Timeline: Within 2 weeks
Development & milestones:
1. Research
2. Creative thinking techniques
3. Thumbnails
4. Photo shoots
5. Image editing
6. Refinements
7. Final design & Presentation
Description of styles: Dragons, Celtic, medieval and fantasy themes
Design examples & Resources:
Materials, equipment, technologies to be used: Olympus FE-20 digital camera, Photoshop, InDesign
The delivery & output requirements: The final book cover will be approximately 5 -1/2 ” x 8 -1/2 ” in size, high quality, finalised in InDesign in PDF format, ready for print. For this assessment, a mock up book cover will be either presented digitally or printed and photographed.
Image Compositing
For this activity, I had to use 5 of my own photos, and create a totally new image, with a theme or subject in mind.
Method: First, I opened the background photo. I cut out the tulips, tiger, flower and butterfly with the quick selection tool, cleaning up the edges as I go. The saturation of the background grass was increased to match the grass around the tiger’s body, and I darkened the tiger’s fur to match the sunlight. I also flipped the butterfly and changed the colour levels to brighten it up. I then added an inner and outer glow to the flower to simulate the sun and added shadows by painting the same colour as the bench’s shadow, then reducing the opacity to 95%.
My aim was to create a wacky scene that you wouldn’t normally see in the real world.
Image Editing
In this activity, I was required to edit 3 of my own photos using my newly learnt skills in image editing.
Method:
1. Add black & white adjustment layer
2. Paint with black to reveal coloured flower
3. Add Hue/Saturation layer, adjusting saturation to +22
4. Convert to Smart Filters
5. Blur gallery, select Iris, adjust blur to 34
Method: Edit out unwanted objects with the spot healing tool
Method:
1. Used Quick Selection tool around flower
2. Added Hue/ Saturation layer
3. Changed hue to -112
4. Adjusted layer opacity to 62%
Design Elements
For this activity, we were required to take our own photos that featured 5 of the 7 design elements (The rule of thirds, Lines and shapes, Light and texture, Space and depth, Colour, Contrast and Repetition and patterns), with a brief statement.
Lines and Shapes
Notice that the rail line draws the attention of the eyes away into the distance in the horizon.
With the bars running across the railway, it appears like a long ladder reaching into the sky.
Space and Depth
This photo was taken from Mount Camberwarra, looking down on the Shoalhaven region.
Because this photo was taken from a height, the depth of the below scenery is more easily perceived.
Notice how in the distance, low cloud makes the background hazy, while the sunlight highlights the foreground.
Repetition and Patterns
This is a photograph of part of an outdoor chair. The metal design has a repeated pattern on a black background that stands out.
After staring at this photo for a while, you start to notice the little specks of rust with lines also appearing horizontally in the pattern causing an optical illusion.
Contrast
This white and purple flower, taken with a macro lens, stands out from the contrasted leafy green background, drawing the most attention from the viewer, with the purple centre also drawing you in even further.
Light and Texture
This is a close up shot of a old wooden worktable. The afternoon sunlight emphasises the texture and also the splits in the wood.
Photomedia Immersion
Case Study: Alexia Sinclair, “The Regal Twelve”
Alexia Sinclair is an Australian born photo media artist whose works are best known to portray ‘historical and allegorical figures’. She studied fine arts at The National Art School (1995-98), majoring in traditional photography, and completed a master of fine arts in 2007 from Newcastle University. Her experience in theatre in her younger years, and her future studies of painting, drawing and sculpture art history influenced how she approaches her works.
In her award winning MFA series “The Regal Twelve”, Alexia celebrates the lives of twelve European monarchs, who lived and ruled in the timeline of two millennia.
This project took 3 years to complete (within the MFA timeframe), compiled of hundreds of photographic elements and illustrations into digitally montaged artworks in Photoshop. None of her work contains computer generated images, but instead she photographs models in her studio with the costumes, props and set all produced by herself, and then adds multiple layers of her own photographs and hand drawn illustrations to create the artworks.
Her work features across many spectrums of art form and is not aimed at a particular audience but is open to the general public
The final images (with the monarch’s bio) were elegantly framed and displayed at various exhibitions.
Sources:
https://alexiasinclair.com/collections/the-regal-twelve
Case study: Ruby Belnick, “After Turner”
Ruby completed her HSC Body of Work in 2015, and due to her outstanding work, she was selected for ARTEXPRESS 2016. In her work, “After Turner”, she states that she is fascinated by the ocean, with the ability of both force and danger, yet calming and comforting.
Ruby’s goal was to create a series of images of the ocean that portray different emotions and evoke different responses in the audience. She was inspired by JMW Turner, a painter from the 1800’s, whose paintings are “luminous, almost abstract romantic imagery”.
The target audience originally would have been the HSC visual art examination markers, and as she resulted an outstanding body of work, it later became public.
The body of work would have had to be submitted within year 12 of high school. During the process, it was mandatory for Ruby to record her experiments and process of her body of work into a visual diary. The delivery and output of HSC would have been to professionally present the body of work a specified art style (drawing, painting, video etc.). Ruby used a combination of creative techniques. She used mind maps for idea and concept generation, experimented with photos in Photoshop, and experimented with the layout of her collage. Ruby used her own photos, which were edited in Photoshop’s camera raw filter. This allowed her to experiment with various variables such as saturation, highlights, shadows clarity etc. all at once allowing her to create her desired outcome. She also experimented with layering multiple images.
Sources: http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/insideartexpress/2016/ruby_belnick/?model=expressive-forms-all
