JSS reflection

 

JSS Cover Design



I started my design process by searching previous covers in order to see what I should stay away from. I intended to create a unique cover, aimed at adults. Through my search, I came across various illustrations, but the work of Keith Hau interested me. I particularly liked the rough, lino-cut style and the vibrant imagery. I thought that the illustrations would add both text and colour to my cover and offer a instigation point. I attained permission to use the illustrations by sending an email, and I received a positive reply very promptly:

When I had the illustrations - although I originally assumed that they would offer me a great starting point - new problems arose. Because the illustrations were so strong, it would be impactful to put one of the chosen ones on a neutral background, and let the design form simply around it. While that would make a great cover, it would not showcase many of my technical design skills. This made it very difficult to know where to start.

I opened every image in Photoshop and saved each one as a .psd file in order to delete the white space around them. This enabled me to better place my images, and fit the text and design elements around them without an issue.

I then decided that the image of the elephant was very strong, and worked quite well on the cover. I chose not to use a specific jungle image as I still wanted to create a unique adult cover. I also positioned two of the other images strategically around the blurb. At first, I created quite a earth-toned cover with banners around the top. I felt it was important to talk about Rudyard Kipling as the author of The Jungle Book, as that is a recent title that has been adapted to cinema.

I then used a swatch palette of cool, blue and purple tones because I wanted to move away from the previous editions that featured warm and earthy tones. I felt that this was quite difficult, as the illustrations I used were often warm-toned and some of the subject in the book contains a jungle. However, there are nautical and desert themes in the collection that could be explored on the cover.

I moved the colours around numerous times in order to get a better idea of how the illustrations would work. I had the background colours silver, charcoal and white in mind, and I played with light blue (which eventually was used for the title). I decided that the illustrations were not best displayed on a darker background, and the silver washed them out. However, I could not allow the cover to be fully white, so I coloured in the flaps with my chosen palette. I think this effect works very well.

I created my own font using Adobe Illustrator. I made this decision because I needed to add some of my personal technical input into the formation of the cover. I rotated and enlarged each letter in turn to give a fun and jumpy feel. I then edited the colour of each letter in the programme using swatches from my aforementioned specially designed cool-toned palette. I then found a spotted swatch and coloured the first letter with this swatch. This was quite a long process as I had little Illustrator experience, but I think the effect works very well. Although I originally set out to create an adult edition, and this does make the cover appear that it is marketed to a younger/YA consumer.

the quality on this screenshot is reduced, but the vector image (as shown on PDF is of excellent quality)

I created an original version of the title on Illustrator for the spine, based on my original one. This is because it needed to be fully Landcape. The colour of my spine was also taken into consideration, as I wanted to carry the vibrant purple colour through. This meant that the colouration of the title font had to be adapted to be much lighter on the spine, and I eventually settled on silver, to match some elements from the cover.

I then created an ellipse background on Photoshop and used the wind tool to make the outside smudge and appear more professional and non-standard. This was an effective technique and makes the lettering stand out.

I downloaded the font Gurmukhi MN because it was traditional and serif, but it was rounded and approachable at the same time. I also think it appears slightly exotic for this reason. I used this font style throughout the text and into the page design, which adds a sense of continuity. I edited the colouring of the text at different points in the cover design process, which also adds some areas of interest.

I created a bitmap image for the 'about the author' segment on the front flap and edited the colour to a vibrant purple. I feel that this gives a really interesting and contemporary appeal to the previously plain, B&W image.

For the back flap, I added numerous quotes about Just So Stories from various print publications. I feel that this adds some credibility to the edition, and could increase saleability. I also included a colour graded cricket image on this flap for some subtle extra detail. The image was edited to a cooler tone in Photoshop before being added to the InDesign file.

I created the blurb from my imagination, and spell-checked in Word. I then checked the formatting and grammar. In the midst of my design, I had spelled 'leopard' incorrectly and I had missed a capital letter from 'Kipling'. These mistakes were easily rectified, but displayed how easy it would be to leave a mistake on a book cover without the proper checks in place.

The most time-consuming process was the image mode correction, as my files had been saved as RGB images at the first stage. After I had corrected this issue and successfully re-linked the images in place, I was able to package my file up with no issues.

I unfortunately did forget to add fold marks between the slug and the bleed. This was a very silly error as I had written a list that stressed that amendment, but I was distracted by other aspects of the design. I will be sure to add these to many of my future covers.

JSS Endpapers

I opened an InDesign file as two 2198x129mm pages, and then opened all of my images in Photoshop. I then changed the images to greyscale, and then to .bmp images in the style Halftone. I chose this style because it retained the majority of the original detail, which needed to be maintained on the endpapers so the species of animal could be deciphered. Once I had the .bmp files, I placed them into my InDesign file. I then selected the image (not the image frames) and coloured them with a specific colour Pantone (Solid Uncoated #342). This was a bright gold/yellow, which I could alter using the 'tint' feature to create different shades of yellow for each animal.
 

The colour choice- while quite different from my cool palette from the front cover - did tie-in quite well with some of my elements, and offered a conscious contrast to the exterior. I wanted a bright and fun endpaper design, and I think this works very well.

 

I arranged all of the animals in somewhat of a linear fashion, but I resized some of the animals (like the armadillo and cricket) to give a surreal feel, and fit with my bright and unusual colour choice. In one of my module reflections titled 'Imagery and me', I show that I am able to align numerous figures in Photoshop using the tools in the top banner. However, this endpaper design was not suited to this button upon testing, as it gave a uniform and ill-spaced effect. I made the pattern appear that it was repeating, by placing animals off the page. I also rotated some of the animals, so that the repetition was not as obvious and to work to the same unusual effect.

JSS Typesetting

I carried through the font from my original cover design, which I think works well as an inside typeface. I also considered the font Athelas, which is very similar.

I created paragraph styles for the contents page, the sub-headings, the main body style and I added a drop cap to the first paragraph style. I also adapted the baseline grid to 16pt, and the text size to 12. This added a great sense of readability. I added quite a wide margin of 60pt, to ensure that the text ran on until page 12, and because I noticed from looking at the interior of a similar title that this was a convention in this genre.

I used a bitmap version of my illustrations for the chapter opener, and carried through dotted borders and elements from my cover. I also included the typography from the front cover on my title page, and I adapted this font using Adobe Illustrator to make the font smaller and more appropriate for a contents and chapter opener header. I think these techniques introduce design elements, without overcomplicating the interior or making the design appear unfit for the target audience.

If I were to re-design the interior, I would add more design elements to the contents page, and possibly re-size the images to suit the titles. I would also introduce dotted borders to more of the page, and I added and deleted the borders numerous times because I could not decide if they cheapened the overall aesthetic.

With regard to the typesetting, I have omitted widows and orphans, corrected the dashes and the speech marks and refined the formatting.

 

Conclusion

 

Overall, I feel that I kept to the brief set to me, I had the correct dimensions and every specified element was included. I maintained some sense of continuity through all of my Just So Stories work, and I think the design is strong.

 

I set a personal brief to create an adult cover, but I found that it was difficult to create a stripped back, contemporary adult cover without over simplifying the final product. For this reason, I now believe that the cover sits somewhere in between a child and adult market, in YA.