Crit

After finishing my first draft I critted it to the class, as well as the poster and this is the two designs I made.

Crit went well, I got a lot of positive feedback from the class and only a few tweaking negative feedback which was very minor.

Making the illustrations

I started off by creating the characters, using the pen tool i constructed the outlines of Ratty and Mole.

I made an art stroke, to give the lines a pointy effect then applied these to the paths I drew up with the pen tool.

After drawing them I filled the paths with colour gradients, and added patterned textures from the swatch menu.

After finalising the characters I imported them into the template file for the book cover.

I drew up the front cover first, then spine, then back cover.

I used the pen tool throughout, constructing the trees and backgrounds.

After I done the trees, I done the snow on the ground by creating a gradient and adding importing a photoshop effect by creating a 'grain' effect to make it look more detailed and look like snow.

Then I simply added the other details such as holes in the tree which are blured into the tree, the evil yellow eyes which I copied and resized and re position them arouned the trees.

I added snow onto the branches and created falling snow by making a white circle and copying and re positioning it around the top, I created the snow flake by using the pen tool and copying and re positioning.

I done the footsteps using the pen tool again and decreasing the opacity on the ones closer to the back of the book by 4% each footprint.

Poster

I first of all drew up the trees, and all other illustrations in illustrator to use as template which I then imported into photoshop for further editing.

I drew it up using the pen tool, using the same techniques as for the book cover filling it with brown/black gradients. I used the same characters from the book cover onto here. I done the text in illustrator because it comes out better than text in photoshop. After I finished this in illustrator I then opened it up in photoshop...

I made the snow grained using one of the filters. I then downloaded a snow plug in, which creates a falling snow effect, I made one for the whole size of the page. I then made a another layer of snow for just the top half to make it look more realistic as more snow will be higher up. The snow flakes were a brush I downloaded which i simply applied using different shapes and sizes.

Written statement

First of all in my proposal/pitch I broke down the brief into four main points as a reference I could easily remember in my head what the design should achieve these four points were: 'A striking cover design, imaginative concept, a strong use of typography and eye catching'.

I am going to write how I think my design has achieved these four points.

To begin with I feel my design is definitely a striking cover design. It has avoided the existing cliche designs of having a friendly atmosphere with all four characters happy in a field next to a river. Mine is pretty much the opposite in that it is focused on a dark phase of the book where mole is lost in the woods and ratty s looking for him, mole looks scared and lost on the front book cover, surrounded by darkness and evil eyes glaring him. It gives this horrifying mood across, it makes you look at the cover and think oh what could possibly be in those woods. It gives mystery to it. Unlike the other covers where there's not really anything questionable going on in the cover. My art style of how I have done my trees, in a curved 2d pointy style to give that spooky and sophisticated look, makes the cover look striking.

The penguin brief wanted an imaginative concept which I think my design comfortably fits with this point, there's no other book cover for The Wind in the Willows like mine, mine is themed on a dark side of the book whereas every other is on a happy side. My cover emphasizes this by the range of dark colors filling the book, with dark gradients giving that edgy look, if the cover was plain block colors then it wouldn't give that as edgy look than what gradients give. The time the cover is set is at night which automatically gives a spooky mood. The element about my cover which I think compliments this main point is the footsteps from mole which follows through from the back cover to the front cover. The footsteps fade gradually from the front to the back to show that the foot steps are getting older and older. These footsteps are like what strings the front cover and back cover together, it is the main focal point of the book because they are the tracks for ratty to follow to find mole, so without these footsteps there wouldn't really be a story or scene in this cover. The front and back cover wouldn't have an as strong design as there wouldn't be as much relation between them.

I'm very satisfied with my typography on the book cover I think it is very strong and again comfortable fits the brief. First of all before I chose what type face I wanted I already had a feel of what I wanted the book cover to communicate to the audience, I wanted a spooky and dark mood. The type face was so important to fit this as it is what the audience are going to be looking at first when looking to buy the book in a book shop. So I had to consider, was the font clear to read? did it fit the design/theme? Did it stand out? and I feel strong that my font achieved this. My typeface looks spooky and the serif on the font suits well with how I designed the trees. How I laid out the type with having 'The' much smaller sitting on the 'W' of 'Wind' and then having ' in the' in the same size sitting on top of each other on the right of 'Wind' then having 'Willows' in the same size as 'Wind' sitting underneath it gave a nice look, it looked dynamic and symmetrical. It was still clear to read and the color of it being black and on the white/grey snow stands out and contrasted nicely. My secondary typeface I took a lot of consideration choosing, I wanted it to match the primary typeface as much as possible, and after a lot of research the one I chose I was very content with. I think it matches very well, it looks spooky but not as emphasized and is clear to read as a small piece of text on the blurb.

Lastly the final point was 'eye catching' I think if my book cover was on a bookshelf with others around it, it would be eye catching. The colors stand out a lot, and nice contrasting on one another, night scenes stand out more from a daytime scenes because they are less common, just like mine. I think people would look at it and think 'oh, thats strange for wind in the willows' and will take more notice and consideration of it. The evil eyes glaring from the surroundings draw your eye to see whats going on, and the falling snow and snowflakes give that little charm to the book which makes the artwork look more pleasing to the eye, book covers are all about audience and satisfying the eye to the customer and overall I am happy with how I have think I have matched this.

Branding guidelines

In this project part of the brief is creating branding guidelines. I have never heard of these before and have no knowledge on them what so ever. I will research what they are, why companies use them and what to include in them to help gain an understanding what I can include in mine.

What are branding guidelines?
Branding guidelines are like a set of rules of what to do and not do when designing something for the brand. It is displayed as like a visual booklet displaying information. It summarises what the brand stands for.

Why do companies create branding guidelines? 
They make a set of branding guidelines to strictly set out rules so the company maintains a consistent identity across all marketing channels. So designers can get a good feel of the brand, understand the tone of voice so their work has a higher chance of being more efficient for the brand.

What is included in branding guidelines?

• The brand summary, short description of the brand and their message as a company. 
• Logos, the logo has to be clarified what you can and cant do when using the brand logo. such as size variations, kerning between letters, colour, font, character styles etc.
• Examples of what you can and cant do to demonstrate the rule
• Spacing around elements. For example at least a 5mm space around the logo at all times.
• Colours, A palette should always be included giving the hex number and other information n each colour, it should say what the colour is used for.
• Fonts, defining the typeface is essential. Providing font size, line height, spacing, colours and what font is for what purpose (title & body)
• Tone of voice, this is what the brands style is summarised in this projects case it going to be my art style, giving a clear summarisation of the brands art style is key to keeping consistency. 

How I am going to aproach my guidelines?

I have looked at some examples of branding guidelines to get a more clear idea what I am going to put in mine. I am going to set my branding guidelines so it has a nice smooth consistent layout and design throughout. Using less text on screen as possible. 

My plan for what content is going on what page for my branding guidelines is going to be:

1. Title, screen saying branding guidelines with my name on

2. A summary saying what my project is about, making a design for the penguin competition which is a book cover and poster.

3. Contents

4. Show the puffin logo, and saying it cant be manipulated, giving examples of what you cant do

5. Show the colour pallet, defining the hex decimals and where the colour is used in my design

6. Font, primary font saying what type face, size, spacing around letters, colours.

7. font, this time for secondary font.

8. My art style, defining it giving examples of my illustrations.

Simple colour scheme, white with black text throughout. Clear and consistent layout.

Feedback from pitch

Today I pitched my idea to the class and it went very well. I got all positive comments from the class. The comments where from what I can remember where

' I like the idea of the footsteps, the link between both the covers is cool'

'The font I had chosen suits the design very well'

The feedback from George was:

'I like the way you put the brief into 4 main points, its a good way of remembering it importantly'

'I really like the design, if you pull it off it can look extremely good'

'Its good that you spent a lot of time choosing your type face and your matching body text font face'

'I like the image you are using to replicate your image, its really good'

'Im glad your pushing yourself in this project'.

To conclude this, Im really happy with my feedback. I feel I can just get straight into making it now without worrying about elements I've designed. Its going to be hard to make but I'm confident in my ability I can pull it off, this is my biggest challenge yet out of all my designing projects I have ever done. But its going to help me very well as a designer, my illustrator skills by the end of it should be improved very greatly. Im looking forward to making it.

Style I am using

My drawing style is going to be very similar to this image I have found after researching quite a bit to find something that my style is going to be like. Its not going to be like the heavy detailed hand draw style most wind in the willows book covers are like its going to be like in-inbetween hand drawn and blocky style. So it will still be detailed from the different lighting, toning, shadows on the cover. This includes different layers of trees, for example the ones at the front will be lighter than ones behind it. The tree will have toning on it like the ones in this image, its not too detailed I like the balance it brings. 

This avoids the cliche and also challenges me for my illustrator drawing skills which I like the thought of. I have decided I will do all my drawings in illustrator. Then bring the characters into to photoshop to add potential textures then export them as a jpeg so they become a bitmap image then bring them back into indesign aswell as the illustrator draw book cover. The snow on the ground will be texture to look like real snow in the same style so it wont be too detailed, I have had a thought about creating snow fall but I'm not sure. This idea I am going to leave at the end to see if it looks better with snow falling in it or not.

Trees

My tree style is going to be very similar to this one, its not too thick and not too thin. Again meeting my satisfaction of right balance, the branches are going to be curvy, pointy but not too emphasised so they look razor sharp just enough to look like a real tree like this one. Not lots and lots of branches coming off each other too.

The trees in the background are going to be scaled down of the ones at the front so it doesn't come off my balance, but this image I can use as a guide to create my trees, maybe live tracing it could be better but I am going to try draw all my trees from scratch.

Characters

*Draw up the characters in illustrator put images here*

Colour pallet

My colour theme has to be dark, cold and spooky. A spooky forest is not going to be bright and colourful so my colours will be dark such as navy blues, blacks, dark browns. It is winter during the scene so there will be which means white must be involved. The characters clothes will be bright which will make them the focal point with the emphasis of contrast in colours.

Here are some pallets illustrating the colours I will be using.

The darkness in-between the trees will have a really dark blue colour.

The trees are going to be a very dark brown, close to black but to brown enough to identify it is brown. I had big thought wether to have pure black silhouette trees but I think that just make the book look to much as if it was a horror book when its not.

Snow on the ground and on some of the branches has to be white. The text is going to be white swell which will contrast well on the dark background.

The evil eyes with in the trees surrounding mole are going to be bright yellow, I didnt pick red because I think that again is over the top. Red is a powerful colour; yellow makes it less like it is a horror book and still conveys that scary atmosphere. It will stand out heavily on the dark trees.

Moles clothes; hes going to have a green body warmer with a red jumper on underneath and either orange or blue jeans. I don't want the colours too vibrant as I want to keep it quite dark but still bright.

Rattys clothes on the back cover; hes going to have a big brown crosshatched coat with a brown hunters hat on. He's going to have black tight leggings on and green boots.