One of the design projects I eluded to at the last post was designing a book cover for an ebook written by friend Krista D. Ball. She posted on Facebook "who wanted" to design it, and I think I nearly tripped over myself to respond!
After a quick back and forth about size, color, theme, style, I suggested I be able to read the story before beginning on the cover. (I thought it was a bit cheap of me to ask, but she also thought it was a great idea!) I read the book, and my mind went into overdrive sketching out ideas. I had about a dozen sketches on paper before I started refining them. I always do my personal favorite first, and then branch out from there, ending with a contact sheet of fonts and logos. That was the case here. It took me about two hours from concept to finished design I was happy enough with to present. I am used to several back and forths, using the concepts I've come up with, adding, removing elements, redesigning elements, scaling, rescaling and scrapping the whole thing for something entirely different, but in the end, only ONE edit was required - the author's name in a different font. Are you kidding me? That's it?! I was tickled, and before the end of the day (heck, almost before NOON) I had the entire artwork package off to her, and my artwork was up on the website with her book.
Talk about a project coming together!I am very lucky to be able to take on design projects I'm passionate about on the basis of what I want to do, but in this case, it came together much easier than usual. Like it was meant to be. I love it when projects seem to be constructed by divine intervention. Because others sometimes seem like they came from hell...
Please see my first few drafts of the book cover. Inspired at the author's suggestion to draw style themes from retro horror movie posters, I came up with these designs. I love them all (they're like my children) but the first one (my favorite) was chosen. Awwww! Thanks Krista! And please please please check out the link to the ebook here: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/19781 and buy the book! It's a great story - an ending I didn't even expect!
4 comments:
Alana, I think you did a wonderful job! Thank you so much.
Love the creativity and varied designs! :)
(And you gotta love a post that has a Hannibal quote for the title. B-))
I'm telling ya, Merc. You and Alana? Soul mates.
Either that, or mortal enemies for who will control the undead masses. It's a toss up.
Thought the quote was fitting for the subject matter. And based on what Krista has said about 'soulmates'? Well, I just gotta find out. Coffee sometime? We can discuss evil, undead policies and such. Oh, the joy about discussing horror topics over a cup o' joe...
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