Book Covers in situe

Finished Book Covers

Here are my final book covers:

Too much

I am really struggling with my workload at the moment. I feel quite down and feel unmotivated for design work. Right now I feel like it is something that I am having to do as apposed to something that I want to do. And it is not as if I am even slacking. Every night after university, where I have been trying to wrap up my project, I will work on my freelance Aquasctutum work; which is proving to be very time consuming and awkward. On saturday I was handed an email from the company with changes that they had made and additional styles for me to complete. I have worked on these all weekend and have still not completed what has been asked of me. They want it by Wednesday which would mean working all night tonight and all day tomorrow on it, delaying any university work until wednesday afternoon, leaving me with only a day and a half to make changes for my university work.

I do not feel that it is entirely my fault that it has come to this. This email from the clientsI cannot say I could have worked harder because I am being honest when I say I have worked very hard almost everyday for 3 weeks on both projects. All i know now is to be completely honest with any exterior employers in the future(whilst im at university) about how much free time I have.

I will get the work done. But I may not be getting the work done to the best of my ability due to having to rush to get it finished. This is a fact I have come to accept and do not mind as it has been down to my actions and will know to get better in the future.

Graphic Sysytems module: Graham Greene book covers

This is my most recent complete book cover for the short story 'May we borrow your husband?" The story follows an author that has travelled away from his home to try and finish his book. Whilst at his resort he falls in love with a married woman who he commonly see's around the resort. He comments on how strange this feeling is considering his age. But he is as interested in the two homosexual men that are the interior decorators for Poopy's house. (Poopy being the lady's name).

Again I have kept consistency in my illustrations by portraying the naivety in the drawing and the line but keeping an intellectual feel to the cover.

My books as a collective:

Better late than never..

Here are my latest book designs. I have made sure there are consistent systems going throughout the designs. Even though the illustrations are different, they follow a same loose style of illustration. Because these are short stories, there isn't much need in setting a big dramatic scene because of the abruptness of the story. 

The Destructors occurs in the 1950's and follws a boys gang named the "Wormsley Common Gang" The gang accept a plan to burn down a 200 year old house and the ordeal turns bad when the owner of the house turns up a bit too early. They also find a mattress full of money but decide to burn it aswell.

The Basement Room follows the life of a young boy born into a very wealthy family. Left by his parents in the care of their butler and housekeeper. 7-year-old Philip Lane excitedly anticipates exploring the large Belgravia house while learning something about the adult world. Once his parents leave on their holiday, Philip seeks out Baines in the basement room, and enters through the green baize door.. 

Crunch Time.

Last night I completed my hardest vector so far. This style(above) took about 2 hours to complete and very fiddly. Hopefully when I go into the offices tomorrow to show the client he is happy with it. I have 3 styles left to complete but I have near on an entire module to complete for my university studies. My first attempt at time management around two jobs has not gone as I had liked it to. Reasons may be down to not estimating the amount of time certain jobs would take. Hopefully I can manage to acquire more freelance work soon and hopefully next time I will act a bit more professionally about it.  

In other topics, the books I have chosen to illustrate are written by Graham Greene and are the following short stories:

• The Destructors
• The Basement Room
• Under The Garden
• A discovery In The Woods
• May We Borrow Your Husband
• Cheap In August

Graham Greene Short Stories

Just bought this book to help me in my illustrations for 'Graphic Systems'. The Author I have chosen to study is Graham Greene and he is very well known for his powerful short stories, a lot of which do not have covers or any visual references. After reading this book I will choose 6 short stories and begin my visual and design process.

Website Design

whilst perusing the internet for website design, trying to find inspiration, I stumbled across the world smallest website, decked out with flash games such as pong and pacman, and has browzing topics such as art, news and fame. the only thing you see is the image shown above and it is about the diameter of a pen top.

New Brief notes: Graphic Systems

These were my notes I jotted down during our briefing. Alot of what was said revolved around consistency throughout the series and similar styles across the range of illustrations. We are to rebrand old books by a chosen author of six, create a system for these books to make them look part of a system. The project is contemporary based, so rebranding to make old books modern is the body of the project. Still unsure who I will choose as I have kind of tilted towards the work I have for Aquascutum instead of University work this week.

Final Tutorial

Final Tutorial on Business Identity brief today. Got some helpful feedback about the choice of colour palet used and layout of type. Here are my changes that I will present at my critique tomorrow. Changing the colour palet down to just 2 colours, with a number of various different tones of the same colour. And in regards to changes of type, I have skewed the text so that it is following the lines of the business card. Should have thought to do that.

Updated Compliments slip

Recently changed the layout of my compliments slip through researching what companies do wit regards to document size. This document size of 210x80 looks more formal and executive, and with the faded image/watermark of Jamerson in the background, it adds a exclusive feel to it.

Business Identity: James Jamerson

Business Card Front

Business Card Back

Compliments Card

Letterhead

These are my most recent, and hopefully final pieces for the business identity brief. 

Tutorial Feedback

My most recent tutorial on my work was helpful and I discovered areas that I had not thought to research yet. This project has really made me think and helped my process of turning information and research into visuals.

Brand Identity: James Jamerson

The brand identity brief asked us to come up with a business card, letterhead and compliments card for our chosen client. All the clients that were given out are deceased and are known for various accomplishments. I chose James Jamerson and these are early final visuals that I took to my critique with me. He was a bass player for 95% of all Motown tracks and was influential in the field of bass guitar playing, being the first artist to take a double bass and flip it horizontally and play it like a guitar. He was very talented but hardly anyone knew about him. He took on the label as an 'unsung hero' as all the attention would have been on the stars such as the Jackson 5, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder. I wanted to portray this in my work by making the image of him intentionally hard to see. Similar situation with the thought behind the typeface. The 4 bars running through the image represent the 4 strings on a bass guitar that are all different thicknesses that, in some ways, Jamerson was hiding behind throughout his career as a musician, whether it was intentional or not.

Motion Graphics.

Participant Media - Pledge To See This Film

I think this is a great example of info graphics as well as motion graphics. The messages that are portrayed are very serious and need to be considered in a serious manner. The idea of having visuals to coincide with the voice over is incredibly affective and is a powerful way of maintaing the viewers attention. And for cases such as the future of the worlds children (in this case american children), this skill is vital.

Honesty, the best policy?

Found this on the post secrets blog and made me smile. I wonder how many people from my uni, or indeed from any university would own up to this also.