Day 51

Well, my project has been completed and emailed. I can truly enjoy my Thanksgiving break now!

Overall, I enjoyed this project immensely. I was reluctant at first to do this much work, but I'm glad I got up off my butt and persevered. I can't think of the last project I did that was this much fun! I hope I have more classes in the future that allows us to be this free thinking.

Day 50

DONE!

It's time to do the happy dance, I'm done with all of my covers! I'm cutting it a bit closer than I'd hoped for, but I was distracted by a huge microeconomics test yesterday and the fact that I drove three hours to come home this afternoon. Nevertheless, the covers are finished and put into a PowerPoint, all I need to do is add a small blurb to a few of them.

This particular cover took A LOT of time, much more than I think was necessary.

I think I'd made four different ones before settling on the most simplistic (and easiest) one. 

Off to go work some more..

Day 48

Do you have any idea how many fonts there are? My brain is exploding from all the possibilities and choices.

A tiny bit of the madness.

I find that thinking up and designing the covers are the simplest part of the whole ordeal; what is taking me the longest is picking a font and placement for the title and author. I've spent 20 minutes contemplating a font for Water for Elephants. Not exactly the most time-efficient way to work.

I've worked all day on Project 1 and I am definitely not finished for the day.

Day 42

I realized that I am subconsciously being influenced by minimalist movie posters, like these:

(I even had an idea like that for the Fight Club book!)

I'm a simplistic kind of person. Excepting Young Adult books, I don't like loud, cluttered covers. Almost all the covers I've created so far resemble these posters in some way. I'm trying to pull out a key theme from the book and express it graphically. 

Anyways, except for a quick trip to Starbucks, I've been working on this project all day (along with Project 2). Admittedly, I've hit a speed bump. I'm not feeling too inspired anymore and have been mainly just messing with colors and graphics. Meh. 

Day 41

I've made up for the past month this afternoon. I haven't done anything else today except work on this project. I watched Emma, called my parents, and ate all while doing covers.

I completed 5 new covers and finished/tweaked 2 ones in progress. Let's see...if I had to pick a favorite from today's work, it'd probably be this one:

I found the picture somewhere online, edited it to make the background darker and the bottle glow more, and added the fairy thing in the corner. Took longer than I'd anticipated, but I'm pretty pleased with it.

I also set up and began to put together the Powerpoints that all the covers will be presented in.

Day 40

OK, I'm a total slacker. :(

I've spent my Saturday night browsing Photoshop brushes, textures, and patterns for future covers. I've also written a few lists of book ideas.

Tomorrow will be a 100% work day. Promise.

Day 20

Whoa! I forgot about this!

Let's see. I haven't worked on the project for about a week (I've had tests and my birthday was this weekend, cut me some slack!). The week before, I did do some pretty extensive work. I've made several more covers and about 10 backgrounds for future ideas.

I am definitely a fan of re-creating classics; they look better in black and white and I get create images of classy ladies like her! I don't think that Cathy was this classy in Wuthering Heights though...

Day 8

September 22, 2010

I'm on a roll! I've done 3 more covers since then. I've been up since 10 working on them and did quite a bit last night as well.

I've come to realize that my style will always be drawn towards simplistic. I love many colors, fonts and graphics, but I will have plenty of places to spread them out during this project!

I must keep reminding myself that I have other classes to study for. None of them are as fun ast this though!

Day 7

September 21, 2010

I've been approved! I've already started coming up with some ideas and writing titles on Post-Its.

While in the library tonight, I already did a rough copy of my first cover! It took around half an hour.

It's a work in progress...the size doesn't look right and the coloring looks like puke (it's supposed to look old and aged).

I also spent about 15-20 minutes trying to organize my Photoshop brushes and graphics. I have about 70 or them in random folders on my computer.

Day 5

September 19, 2010

Epiphany! I think I have a solid idea. I want to combine my love of reading/books and digital design into one...how about I create new covers for some of my favorite books?

I am solid with Photoshop, have an extensive collection/access to books....why not mesh together my strengths with my hobbies?

<---Surely I can create something slightly less ridiculous than this.

Graphics, pictures, paintings....it's endless. I also can profess my love of typefaces.

I will develop this more tomorrow and put together my form for the teacher (YOU!!). Now maybe I will get a good night's sleep without any worry!

Day 4

September 18, 2010

I need to get a move on. I have several ideas on how to actually execute my project, but am still clueless about my actual topic. Horses before carts.

Let's start by narrowing down my interests:

• History
• Books
• Movies/television
• Graphic design/photography
• Uhhhh....

Some sort of chronicle of my adventures watching the new season of CSI? Yikes. I need some tea.

Day 1

September 15, 2010

We were assigned Project 1 tonight in Visual Communications.

I need to decide my topic/theme by Monday.

I personally loathe projects that have broad topics. I like the chance to be creative, but I always feel that I'll pick something stupid or wrong, and just end up stressed out.

I have 4 days to figure this out. Time to put my thinking cap on!

<--This is seriously how I left class tonight.