Who You Callin’ Four Eyes?
Even though I already did a narrative unit in junior year, the second narrative project in senior year is a bit different. In the narrative two unit, I still focused around one story that I wrote out and let different projects branch out from there. Though, there are still some new things you can find on there! Some of those things include my dialogue driven short story, a trailer for that story, a designed book jacket cover for that same story, and some other projects that helped me learn a lot of different techniques to use for this unit’s central focus: creative freedom and how to express it professionally.
To go along with my short story and its trailer, I also made a book jacket to visually display what the book has to offer. In this case, I needed to judge my book by its cover! If I wanted to get someone to pick up my book, I needed to design it nice enough for someone to find interest in it. I drew out everything for my book jacket cover using ProCreate, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I chose out my own color palette, designed the character and his environment, and decided the layout of my book jacket. I also needed to measure a real book I was using before even putting the dimensions into InDesign. For the author’s photograph of myself, I went into the set up photoshoot studio with my friend so we could take professional photographs of each other.
Artist Statement
During one of the greatest galactic trades going on, the Meekan Empire and the Wooncon are on the verge of their alliance falling apart. Of course, there is an illegal alien organization, MK-13479, snooping around to see where they could make more money during this economic downfall. Who will win? The tree hugging Wooncons or the members of the unnecessarily long gang name? To go along with my short story, I also designed this book jacket to visually display what the book has to offer. In this case, I needed to judge my book by its cover! If I wanted to get someone to pick up my book, I needed to design it nice enough for someone to find interest in it.
I drew everything for my book jacket cover using ProCreate, Illustrator, and Photoshop. I also needed to measure a book I was using before even putting the dimensions into InDesign. It wasn’t the actual measurements that gave me some trouble, it was how many inches I would need to add so it would fit on my book jacket. For the author’s photograph of myself, I went into the set up photoshoot studio with my friend so we could take professional photographs of each other. I chose out my own color palette with the Plus Series Pantone Formula Guide. I went with a lot of cooler greens and blues to give it a feeling of feeling very close to nature yet also out of this world. An art element that really tied my book jacket piece together is the different textures I used to make my art come to life. I designed the smallest details put into this project and I am very proud of the design I did for my short story’s main character, Winston P. Chimers, a raptor-like extraterrestrial. I was going to put his actual physical appearance on the front cover, but I felt like making him a statue in a mesmerizing, peaceful stance in of his planet’s forests would fit the theme of his personality and the overall message of my short story. There can be some touch ups to the layout of my book jacket like maybe adding in one more text font since I went with two different ones, but overall I poured my heart into the quality of this project. This character has meant a lot to me for years now and I am happy with how I finally got to dedicate something to his existence as one of my main characters.