Lionheart

In Thursdays session, Ness Wood of David Fickling Books (@wood_ness on twitter) came into the session to talk with the group about the book design process. It was a really exciting talk, and Ness' career has been overwhelming.  Ness also doubles as a book historian, and works with Queen Mary University. 

In the lesson, we were given the hardback cover to Richard Collingridge's Lionheart, which looks like this: 

We were then asked to formulate a different paperback cover, suitable for supermarkets with mass-market appeal. We were given the option of sketching or of using Photoshop and I thought I had better use the time to hone my skills. The illustrations from the book were available on Blackboard, and I had a look through to find a different image with both of the major characters that would be graphic enough to get noticed, and display the excellent illustrations: a major selling point.

pesky birds

I found this one, and I used the lasso tool to cut around the image - which wasn't very easy for a novice like me because of the hairiness of the lion and the trickiness of the birds. I thought the background could be more dynamic and tell more of the story, so I had a look through the illustrations and found the image below. The animals in the book are a main feature of the story, and displaying them more prominently on the cover was important. I like how in this image, the animals are peeking through the wilderness:

I then sought to put the lion over the more exciting background image, and I blurred and blurred and blurred to get rid of any pixel-y problems. I also cut out a few birds from the first image and positioned them so they were flying off the screen, which I thought looked quite hopeful and gave a nice uplifting tone to the image. Choosing an illustration where the lion looks quite sublime was an important factor in the process, because the book is about a child overcoming fear. Evoking that on the cover with the juxtaposition of a small child and a large lion was quite important. I also think that this nods to the original cover, where the two were contrasted in a similar way. 

 

For the final version, I manipulated the contrast, saturation and added a filter so the colours would be quite powerful for added visibility. I also used a similar font to the original cover on my version, but if I were to go back and change anything, I would probably make it bold so it would stand out more on supermarket shelves. The red star - which looks  quite gaudy on the image - symbolises a sticker of some sort. Possibly added by the publisher to show an award the book has been involved with (like being nominated for the V&A best illustrated book), or for the supermarket to place an offer or a price.

I'm really excited that my Photoshop skills are improving, and I'll let you know if I get any feedback on my version of the cover.