Sun, Sea and the SW Trail : Planning for an adventure scrapbook

Sketching Contents and chapter pages:

Thumbnails version 2:

Satellites might make better plans than joey scribbles

Coloured in Scribbles:

Turning scribbly maps into scribbly maps with photos cluttering them

Turning scribbles into colourful scribbles

 
Kindly ID'ed critters, don't lose these!

Orange spot piercer moth

currant clearwing

mother of pearl moth

Narrative Project Begins: Sunflower Hearts

Thus begins a suddenly inspired story of Rose the robin chick, with a hidden message that can help others of all ages, from children to the elderly without the graphical abruptness and severity.
In nature, animals don't chose to shy away from nutrients... that would lead to death. So why do we as humans do such a thing? What sets us apart from the animals who seem to have a lot more common sense than we do?
This is the tale of little Rose, the robin hatchling who strives to be the fastest, sleekest and most beautiful robin there ever was, better than he brother and sister. She refuses mother and father's supply of big, fat, juicy worms, turning her beak up at them.
Overtime her brother and sister grow bright red and beautiful plumage, strong wing muscles and boundless energy. They soon fly the nest, leaving poor, sickly little Rose still naked, cold, bony and very sick indeed. Mother and father robin look at her desparingly... then come up with a plan.
They don't give up on their little bundle of bones. They wrap her tightly in their wings to warm her, soothe her, care for her with all their love.
Mother robin says to Rose, "I've gotten you a very special treat, my little pink Rose. They will make you grow into the fastest, strongest, most beautiful robin there ever was". She opens her wings, where she'd tucked  wingful of sunflower hearts - smooth, soft pale seeds perfect for baby robin. Rose, feeling very weak and very ill, tentatively nibbles one of the seeds. It is much better than those dirty, wriggling worms!
Slowly, steadily, she eats the delicious, tender sunflower hearts her parents bring her. They tend her lovingly, give her lots of warm hugs to shelter her, comfort her with kind words and encouragement, shower her with love and preening.
Soon Rose grows such lustrous plumage from the oils and nutrients in her sunflower hearts, her wings grow strong, energy flows deep into her muscles. She blossoms into such a radiant young robin, mother and father are overwhelmed with joy and her brother and sister are in awe of her.
Rose flies the nest, fully fledged and more than capable of taking care of herself, going back to the fields and bird feeders where she finds her favourite food... Sunflower Hearts.

Quickfire character creation:

 Quickfire cover design:

 fonts

Playing in script

 Test page

 

Get Excited! Dragons and Ink!

Get excited!
A) this is the final act in March of the Dragons, part of he daily drawing themed months, and theres an extra-ordinary new theme for April ;)
B) this dragon is tied to the ongoing and lifelong project of body art, and hopefully soon to be an everlasting companion in my life

Penguin Student Design Awards - The final final final x100

It is done. After a brilliant journey, starting a uni module and ending it with draft designs, picking it  up in the Winter and pushing it forward to the deadline. I've had so much great feedback, self-initiated amendments, trial and error, toil and tedium. And finally today, after all my efforts had been exhausted I said, the is no more i can do until someone tells me otherwise.
I pitched it to Steve Panton, professional book cover designer and art director, who only managed to give just two VERY MINOR tweaks and then it was ready. Those two tweaks were: chalk not necessary, and change the blurb to not span two sticky notes all at once. That took but minutes, and now it is in the hand of the judges! Watch this space!

Penguin Student Design Awards: Final Cover Designs for Wonder

I've really enjoyed this project every step of the way and worked hard to develop an initial scruffy draft in to (hopefully) what looks like a polished final outcome.
There's just one last decision to make, as well as feedback yet to recieve for potential improvements.
I've been often lectured to look at contemporary fonts and work with type, which is what i've done here.
The question now is which font to use. These covers are getting 50/50 votes between being readable to the viewer, and playful and eye-catching to the younger audience.
The first is a bold, capital chalkboard style font that stands out the most from the cover, the capitals giving it great emphasis and power to shout WONDER.
The second is more playful and quirky, a font i found and adapted to replace the O from a heart to a star to suit the cover.
The 3rd, after an even divide in votes, makes use of both, allowing the title to remain stand-out while incorporating the playfulness in the author. The reasoning: the title MUST be one of the first things the viewer recognises, and while the author is still very important i feel this can be a bit more relaxed in aesthetic.
One woman in favour of the readable font was a worker in Waterstones, who knew her books and pointed out to me the books on a shelve at the other end of the store, saying that even from a distance the title can still be made out. That's why she voted the first. I mimicked this by place my cover printout further away and standing back, showing her point clearly - the first is the clearest.
Other opinions prefering the second comes from younger audiences, mums and people with young children (or work with children). They loved the fun and playful look of this font, saying it would appeal more to children.
Currently awaiting feedback from lecturers.

Feedback:

• The ladybug is too bright, being the only rendered object on the back cover. It sticks out like a sore thumb in the corner. Try drawing it in chalk in the same style as the rest of the book.
• Have a more chalky background. I've tried brightening the black but it made it less clear to the viewer. I'd like to dedicate a sheet of paper to chalk textured smears and finger marks.
• Try straightening the notes on the back.
• For the playful font: Make the star rounder to better act as an O. Have a smaller, rounder 'e'. Lengthen the 'p' in Palacio to be in uniform with the other capitals.
• For the readable font: Jiggle the letters into the grooves. One person likes how the playful font was positioned, even if it was the lesser of the two, so would like to see the better font composed in a similar way. They also suggested trying a star in this font and a squiggle like the 'd' in the playful one.
• The hearts in the playful fonts are too feminine.

At last! what should have been 5 minutes this morning turned into a day of emergancy rescue mission when the final Photoshop file was a corrupted write-off.

I can literally do no more to this until someone points out what bits are shit and need changing.

I've had so much feedback from lots of people, classmates, lecturers and Waterstone book-sellers put together.

Here i've adapted the text to merge both fonts i what try (one was playful, one was readable, this puts them both together to be capital, readable AND with a hint of quirkiness!).

The original ladybug too was too bold and bright, as i'd tried to make it look like a real bug crawling on to of the cover, but this was too distracting and didnt work at all. One suggestion was to blend it in with the chalk drawings, which is what i did here.

PLEASE if anyone has any complaints put them in the comments, Penguin's deadline for the Student Design Awards is coming up in March! :)