For this exercise I had to make a mockup of a book cover. It sounds easy enough, right? Well I thought so at first, but soon came to find that this exercise was one of my most challenging and frustrating to date.
Making a Mockup
I came into this exercise feeling confident. Part of the reflections of my previous section was to revisit some of the previous exercises to see if I could take it further. I revisited Exercise 2.10, and as promised explored how that illustration worked as the book cover it was intended to be, and if adding in the necessary elements fixed the balance of the artwork.
I started by looking at older books, particularly older Penguin styles. Using this as a basis I added in the Title, Subtitle, Author and the Penguin publishing logo. This was the result:
I was really pleased. I couldn't really do much about the table, but the text definitely changed the hierarchy of the piece, and made it feel more balanced. So then I decided to work out how to create a mockup. Now, this is when I found the first limitation to my choice of tools.
For Adobe Photoshop users, making a mockup nowadays is relatively trivial. There are a number of resources (free and paid alike) that use Photoshop's propriety "Smart Object" technology. All you need to do is replace the mockups image with yours, and it immediately obeys all the transformation and adjustments in the file, making it a very easy thing to do, even for beginners.
I use the Affinity suite (Designer & Photo) which doesn't have this technology. So I had to do things a bit more manually. Adding my image as a layer to the mockup photo, I used a perspective filter to non-destructively transform the image and map it to the cover of the book. I then added in a semi-opaque gradient layer on top, to replicate the look of a satin cover. I am quite proud of the result and it definitely works as a book cover:
The Exercise
For the exercise itself I didn't think just riding the back of self-directed work counted. So I decided to create a new illustration. Having raided my shelves for the previous exercise, I decided to attempt an illustration for one of my all-time favourite books: The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I have a pretty old edition, made around the time the 4th book had been released:
This edition was designed knowing that four books had been written. Each had a slightly different variation of the cover, with each quarter of the cover being a quarter of a separate image. You could then rearrange the four books to see the full image. The books also made a composite image on the spine of "42" - apparently the answer to life, the universe, and everything!
I wrote a brief based on what I thought might have been the case for this edition of the books. However, I realised if I was going to take this edition on, I would end up having to copy the concept, and create four illustrations. I thought this would detract from the emphasis of the exercise. I did some research into other editions of the books, and many others have individual covers, but a cohesive design language to tie them together. So I decided this would be the path that I took.
From that position, I started to explore ideas through a mind map.
I really wasn't sure what concept to go with, so instead I decided to move to thumbnails, and see if I could explore concepts of the mindmap in those thumbnails to see if they worked or not.
I tried lots of options and themes. There were two I really liked, but then this is when it got very hard for me. I really struggled with getting any confidence that I could render these thumbnails into something I would be happy with. Ideally I would love to create an illustration worthy of my portfolio. But I simply didn't believe I could do it.
Because of this, I ended up opting for "done is better than perfect" as my motto, and opted for the thumbnail of the whale and petunias - one of the funniest parts of the book, but as a composition goes, one of the simplest. I started by rendering it on Affinity Designer on my iPad Pro, then copied it over to my PC to finish rendering and manipulating.
I changed the font from the one I had started using (a Serif font, similar to the one used on my reference book) to a Sans Serif font that had more of a science fiction appeal. I made the Author's name Bold so that it stood out, and also would contrast on the spine. Oops! I had forgotten the spine, so quickly set out to create it and add it to the mockup. You can see the results below:
Honestly, I am not very happy with the illustration. It seems plain, to the point of boring. It was based on my ability to complete it, than representing any element of my voice. This is what I have struggled to much with for this exercise. There were some thumbnails that I thought would make great illustrations, but I simply didn't feel like I had the artistic or technical competence to do them justice.
I don't know what to do about this. I know practice is the biggest part, and I am doing my best to keep going and plugging away, but I don't know how to reconcile the gap between my ideas and my abilities to render them. Stylistically I don't know what I like and/or what I am best at doing. I feel so, so lost.
I hope that what I have done is enough for this exercise. I certainly had a lot to reflect on, and I learnt that I can complete something half-decent even when doubting myself. So I need to take comfort from that. But I really wish I knew what I had to say, and wish that I could free myself to explore different rendering approaches. Maybe then, I might find something that clicks for me...
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