Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Herland/Ourland Follow-up

During my research for this assignment I came across a current publisher who does small novels in the tete beche style. Gary Lovisi, of Gryphon Books, asked me to send him a copy of my finished book if I had any extras, which I made sure to do. He said he would review it in his next issue of Paperback Parade, which he most certainly did. Below is the cover of the quarterly magazine and the pages with my small article.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Herland / With Her in Ourland

This goes back to the very beginning of the program when I first discovered Herland. What I discovered after googling Herland was that it had a sequel. After I discovered this I knew I wanted to design a book with two covers, with one of the books imposed 180 degrees, for my final project for the design class. I also used Herland for my final project in my Archeology of the Book class, which gave me a greater insight into the writer (Charlotte Perkins Gilman) and its publishing history. I had a couple of books printed up to see how it would turn out, and I learned a lot from the process. I am very happy with how the books came out, but I know what I would do differently next time as well. And, I suppose, that's what this final project was all about.

I knew I wanted to go back to Brioso Pro for my text font, but I struggled with my display font for a long time. Then I found Alea, and I knew I had found the perfect font to make the books look different, but tied together at the same time. All of the embellishments in this font are separate, so I was able to fill the voids on the cover, use the leafy parts for Herland, and keep it simple for Ourland.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Collateral

When this assignment came along I knew I wanted to tie it in with my final project. We had to do three different pieces of collateral. I did a bookmark (not shown), a postcard, and a puzzle. My final project was a book designed in the tete beche style (two books ~ one imposed 180 degrees). So, naturally, all of my collateral items played on that idea.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Ooligan Cover Re-do

This was a collaboration with two other classmates. This is the idea I came up with mostly on my own, which was chosen by the class to be developed further into the final full cover.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Children's Book Cover Final

Our instructor would come around class and look at our idea sketches, then tell us which one she liked the best, along with some ideas on how to make it better. This is my final full cover design after taking her comments into consideration.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Children's Book Cover Sketches

I had no idea what I was going to do for this, but my mind went immediately to very young children's books with bright colors and simple illustrations. I can't draw worth a damn, but I stumbled upon some great illustrative fonts on DaFont. So I put some of the illustrations in Photoshop, colored them like a coloring book, and Voila! Some covers were born.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ 4C Final

I chose this layout because it was the best at showcasing my photos, and it was fun to do the photo illustrations in Photoshop.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ 4C Sketches

As with many designers in the field, we were always required to do at least 3 sketches before choosing a final. These are my three ideas for our 4-color layout project. For once, most of the photos are mine, taken around Portland and Sacramento during my wanderings.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Resume

This was our B&W assignment, testing our interior layout skills. I fell in love with the display font the moment I saw it. I absolutely love using a drop cap with a small-caps lead in. I use this technique a lot.

Spring '09 ~ Book Design ~ Font Study

For this assignment we chose 5 words as a class, then 5 genres. We had to choose fonts that illustrated that word in the certain genres. It was a blast.

*I can't find the file right now, so I have a placeholder in here. This is a font study I did for fun. The bottom font is one of the rockin'-est fonts I've ever seen. I owe much of my fonts used in this class to DaFont.