Book Cover

First, I opened up a new document in photoshop and imported an illustration of cat eyes I had done in dip pen and watercolour into the document. I then began to add the different components of the front cover and centre-aligned it to give it more order and hierarchy as opposed to making everything different alignments which would look messy and not as effective. 

For the back cover, I added in the publishing logo for the book and a barcode and placed them so they were both centre aligned at the top and the bottom of the page. I made them bigger than I wanted them to be so that I could get a rough idea of how they would look on the page. 

Next, I imported one of my illustrations of the cat and moved the barcode, decreasing the size so that it wouldn't take attention away from the illustration. I also made the publishing logo smaller for the same reason. 

After doing this, I added in the blurb of the book and centre-aligned it so that there was more order and hierarchy within the composition. This then prompted me to increase the size of the illustration so that it catches the eye and moved elements of the design down a bit so that everything was in a closer proximity to each other, establishing the relationship between them all. I also increased the size of the barcode a little but kept it to the left side of the page.

Finally, I added both parts of the cover into a new photoshop document and added in the text I would need for the spine. I used the same typefaces as I did for the front cover to create consistency within the piece.

Final Result:

Double Pages

Creating my double page spreads, I opened up four new photoshop documents and imported the illustration I would need for each page onto each one. I then also imported the body text for each page and changed the font to one of the typefaces I had made digitally. I made sure that the images were large and noticeable on the pages with the body text close by to indicate the relationship between illustration and narrative. 

Upon reviewing these pages, I decided that the typeface for the body text would have been more difficult to read and unsuitable for the font's purpose. As this is a narrative, I chose an old-style font that is far more legible than the one I had created as that one was more like a display type and not appropriate for a children's book. I then also moved and re-sized some of the illustrations as well as altering the positioning of the body text so that it was more organised and the illustrations would be easier to see as opposed to before.

I then proceeded to place the pages into new photoshop documents and arranged them so that they were laid out like double page spreads. When i did this, I noticed that some of the body text wasn't in line with the rest so I changed the positioning in order to make it look more organised and tidy.

Final Result:

Final Drafting