Project 4 - Colour and Composition
Coming up:
I design some book covers in the style of different artists and we get tasked to create a magazine about a song.
I design some book covers in the style of different artists and we get tasked to create a magazine about a song.
New week, new project and this week we will be looking into Colour and Composition. To get us rolling, we were told to dust off our painting skills, of which I have never had so this was worth the laugh. We were tasked to create a colour wheel starting with the three primary colours in the centre, then mixing them to create the secondary colours before getting to the full circle where we would create the six tertiary colours. Then, next to those we were told to create a sixteen step gradient from black to white, making sure there was the correct gradient difference between them all. Next to that, we were told to create another sixteen step gradient using a secondary colour that we made just a moment ago, then slowly adding black or white to get to either end of the gradient.
As another little task to do for the beginning of this project was to try and create some designs using only typefaces to represent some words that we were given. Obviously, we weren't allowed to just type the word in and call it a day, no, we were going to try and be creative with the layout of the typefaces along with the sizes of them to create an understanding in the designs. As you might be able to tell, I did do these in a bit of a rush, but if I get around to having some spare time near the end of this project then I'll come and work on some much better ones. My original ideas for these were to just try and be clever with the layout of the typefaces, like having the massive 'M' and a small 'i' in a different colour to represent the word 'scale'. Next was 'Pattern' and for which I chose the capital E and just copied and pasted it multiple times flipping the colours between red and black to create some sort of pattern. The next word I chose was 'power' and for this design, I tried to replicate some sort of leadership talk, like the kind you see in Star wars or something of a presidential speech. I stuck with the red and black theme for these as it feels somewhat reminiscent of some of the Star Wars speeches which are linked back to the way that Hitler held some of his speeches during the Second World War. The last one was supposed to be set around the word 'feminine' with which I changed the colours to some more stereotypically feminine colours and allowed the letters to be quite nicely spaced out to make it feel a lot more flowing rather than sat in place which would feel more masculine.
Today, we were tasked with creating some designs to represent different words using what we have learned from the last project and from even what went well or what didn't work well from the type task that I did just before this. So for this to be a success, we would have to use the skills that we have learnt recently on how to compose an image to represent different feelings or thoughts. In this case, we were only allowed to use coloured paper and were not to recreate a recognisable image, so it had to be pure random pieces of paper to create things that represent the words. I think I did fairly well at this task, using the viewfinders we made to nicely adjust all of the paper underneath it to fit the composition in the design nicely. These are quite rough yes, however they weren't supposed to be perfect, just to show that we can have an understanding of how to compose a design.
Vaughan Oliver.
Oliver is quite well known for his work with the Pixies as they managed to create quite a unique style combining images, textures and typefaces in ways that probably hadn't been used before them. Talking of typefaces, he is quite well known for his use of typefaces, only as he tends to use ones that wouldn't usually work in the design world, but he uses them in such a way that just works quite nicely, like he uses script fonts and other typefaces that you just wouldn't use as they are usually hard to read and understand, but he uses the designs in a way that you are inclined to read and look at so you end up reading it quite well and are interested in the design.
Oliver is quite well known for his work with the Pixies as they managed to create quite a unique style combining images, textures and typefaces in ways that probably hadn't been used before them. Talking of typefaces, he is quite well known for his use of typefaces, only as he tends to use ones that wouldn't usually work in the design world, but he uses them in such a way that just works quite nicely, like he uses script fonts and other typefaces that you just wouldn't use as they are usually hard to read and understand, but he uses the designs in a way that you are inclined to read and look at so you end up reading it quite well and are interested in the design.
Peter Grundy.
What can we say about Peter Grundy then? Well it seems like he isn't a beginner when it comes to using Illustrator, in fact he is probably one of the most talented when it comes to creating vector designs on that software as you can see in the images above. Grundy has the ability to create something that can be instantly recognisable to anyone who looks at it just from using and slightly adjusting simple shapes in Illustrator, and while they can look very simple, there is no need to overcomplicate things when you are able to communicate using much less, it is just very aesthetically pleasing to look at. He is also one of a very small band of brothers who are able to use gradients in the designs without ruining them, and what I mean by that is that he doesn't overdo the use of gradients by adding in too many colours or just two many gradients here and there, in fact he tends to just use one or two in just one colour that tends to just fade away to show some light or a shadow. After looking through his work I realised that I have seen his work before along with many artists who have replicated his style in the past couple of years as this style is getting more in demand for many companies as it stands out really well and is easy for the viewers to understand and relate to.
What can we say about Peter Grundy then? Well it seems like he isn't a beginner when it comes to using Illustrator, in fact he is probably one of the most talented when it comes to creating vector designs on that software as you can see in the images above. Grundy has the ability to create something that can be instantly recognisable to anyone who looks at it just from using and slightly adjusting simple shapes in Illustrator, and while they can look very simple, there is no need to overcomplicate things when you are able to communicate using much less, it is just very aesthetically pleasing to look at. He is also one of a very small band of brothers who are able to use gradients in the designs without ruining them, and what I mean by that is that he doesn't overdo the use of gradients by adding in too many colours or just two many gradients here and there, in fact he tends to just use one or two in just one colour that tends to just fade away to show some light or a shadow. After looking through his work I realised that I have seen his work before along with many artists who have replicated his style in the past couple of years as this style is getting more in demand for many companies as it stands out really well and is easy for the viewers to understand and relate to.
El Lissitzky.
Out of these few artists and designers, El Lissitzky was the one that stood out to me the most. As you could tell from the last project, I really like looking at Russian styled designs and posters as they just work really well, and these are a clear example of what I mean. While we have no clue what any of these mean or what they are for, we can't stop looking at them because of the way that they have been designed, using only black, red and white, they are able to stand out really well when you use random shapes, lines and a little bit of text, and they just pop. I would argue that the designs with the bits of text on stand out the most because the Russian writing just works really well with this style of design and you are naturally pulled towards looking at the text because they in themselves are mostly just sharp shapes that really compliments the style of the actual designs from when he uses rectangles, lines and other similar shapes in his designs.
Out of these few artists and designers, El Lissitzky was the one that stood out to me the most. As you could tell from the last project, I really like looking at Russian styled designs and posters as they just work really well, and these are a clear example of what I mean. While we have no clue what any of these mean or what they are for, we can't stop looking at them because of the way that they have been designed, using only black, red and white, they are able to stand out really well when you use random shapes, lines and a little bit of text, and they just pop. I would argue that the designs with the bits of text on stand out the most because the Russian writing just works really well with this style of design and you are naturally pulled towards looking at the text because they in themselves are mostly just sharp shapes that really compliments the style of the actual designs from when he uses rectangles, lines and other similar shapes in his designs.
|
|
|
I think you deserve a break for making it this far, why don't you do some foot stomping to Franz Ferdinand?
Keen viewers may notice that the style in this music video is somewhat reminiscent of El Lissitzky and that is no coincidence. This music video was a tribute to him and his unique style of design, which they even incorporated into their album cover designs.
Keen viewers may notice that the style in this music video is somewhat reminiscent of El Lissitzky and that is no coincidence. This music video was a tribute to him and his unique style of design, which they even incorporated into their album cover designs.
1984.
While I know nothing about this novel, I already know that when it comes to creating a book jacket for this novel, I will be doing it in the style of El Lissitzky. The reason I say that is because just from looking at previous designs or fan made designs, there is quite a strong feeling of the red, black and white which matches his style, however there are also a couple that are in that classic Russian style, so it makes sense to give that a go as I'm sure I'll be able to use the numbers '1984' in a somewhat Russian styled typeface meaning it will link really nicely into the style of Lissitzky. In terms of the actual novel itself, it is safe to say that 'Big Brother Is Watching You' will be a big part of it as it is all over previous designs, which gives a sense of you being watched and I don't know why but that just sits perfectly into the Russian poster designs too.
While I know nothing about this novel, I already know that when it comes to creating a book jacket for this novel, I will be doing it in the style of El Lissitzky. The reason I say that is because just from looking at previous designs or fan made designs, there is quite a strong feeling of the red, black and white which matches his style, however there are also a couple that are in that classic Russian style, so it makes sense to give that a go as I'm sure I'll be able to use the numbers '1984' in a somewhat Russian styled typeface meaning it will link really nicely into the style of Lissitzky. In terms of the actual novel itself, it is safe to say that 'Big Brother Is Watching You' will be a big part of it as it is all over previous designs, which gives a sense of you being watched and I don't know why but that just sits perfectly into the Russian poster designs too.
Oliver Twist is up next, and I'm pretty certain that the majority of people have heard of this one. This novel is home to the famous quote; "please sir, can I have some more?". This novel was set in London back when everything was in black and white and we all wore hats. While I think most people would choose to do this novel in the style of Vaughan Oliver because of all the previous book covers and that the book would suit his style very well, I feel like I should change it up and choose to do this in the style of Peter Grundy. This would clash the old and gritty style of Oliver Twist alongside the modern and crisp style of Grundy and I feel like that would work really well, we will have to wait and see.
Little Women is the last novel that we have been given for this project, and this one is about four sisters on their way out of childhood and into their adulthood. This is another one that I don't know much about, but I will catch up eventually, for now though, the past front covers for this novel are all very sleek and quite classical which fits the novel perfectly for when it is set. I feel like Vaughan Oliver's use of script and serif fonts could work perfectly with this novel as it could compliment the era that it's set in and can stand out really well if I can find any good images to go alongside.
Brad Holland is an illustrator which I noticed the illustration group being told to research, but I felt like I should drop him in here too as some of his work is brilliant. The sheer use and random illustrations that he creates in his kind of gritty style work wonders with his composition. They are so weird and wonderful that it was just wrong for me not to include, but I should learn from these that a key to success in this style is to make the layout very clear and engaging as people are more likely to look at his work.
Charles Keeping is another artist I didn't need to look at but here we are. I saw some of his work with loads of different colours and thought it would be rude not to include him too. I mean, I don't have the best clue in what's happening in most of his work, but it once again down to his excellent use of composition that allows the viewers to become very interested in what they're looking at.
Since we are looking into some other artists, it is only fair that I show off some Instagram accounts that I have discovered in the past few weeks that I think fit neatly with the vector illustrations that I looked at from Peter Grundy and all this talk about composition. This first one stood out to me quite a lot because of the way they tend to use thick black lines, while it isn't something I would have chosen to start off with, the way they have added in different colours just seems to make the whole design stand out well alongside the thick black lines. I should also note that they don't just use random colours, they tend to use just a small handful of colours, all of which work well together against the black and white.
Another artist that I have found on Instagram is Cheersjack. I have been looking at their work for a couple of years now and they have built a unique brand and style throughout their work by using vector shapes often partnered with a small black stroke around the shapes. In every design, there is always a little nod to their logo which is a smiley face, while it may seem odd at first, it has slowly become an instantly recognisable logo when you see it in their work, either on the sun which is often a part of their designs, or just as a little character to fit in their designs. I really like this style of work, especially with the use of simple and light colours that they tend to use, and you may notice that they never use white as the background colours, it is always an off-white which allows the designs to be easier to look at and understand technically, which is an interesting point that I have slowly been trying to use in my work.
One last designer that I have found on Instagram is Parkopolo. This style of work is a little more chaotic and I really like that in vector graphics. This artist likes to use a much more pastel like colour palette which works really well for this style, and I don't know why, but this just really works well in my head and it stands out perfectly. One thing I had noticed is that they like to use just generic shapes to build up the surrounds, so there is a lot of circles that you can see in the designs, which most designers wouldn't perhaps do, for example most that I have looked at in the past like to use the Pen Tool to create almost perfect replicates of a background, so it is nice to see a different technique being used here.
To start off with the front cover design, I did a handful of sketches in my sketchbook to come up with some simple ideas, all taking parts of Lissitzky's previous designs to make sure there is a clear link between the two. I did like to incorporate some circles and rectangles in the same style as him. I eventually tried my hands at creating something in a circular composition to fit the actually project, the idea was to make the title stand out the most and then allow the design to make you follow it round to the writer, then back to the title.
This time, I didn't do as many rough ideas, but I did remember to add in some pen and colour to allow the initial ideas to stand out really well on a white sheet of paper.
This time, I didn't do as many rough ideas, but I did remember to add in some pen and colour to allow the initial ideas to stand out really well on a white sheet of paper.
Right, let's go digital shall we? To start off, I went to find a fairly decent font, and by sticking a the style of El Lissitzky, I went to find a Russian styled font, but sadly there wasn't many, so I tried my hand at creating my own by using the pen tool on a thick stroke inside a wide rectangle so they were all the same size and fairly square. It wasn't the best effort but it's okay, I gave it a go! You can then see that I have gone in and recreated a fairly similar design to one that I sketched out earlier and so far they are looking quite nice!
For the final little adjustments then, I have been playing around with the layout and composition with the designs a bit more so that the design is able to stand out as much as possible. I quite like to see the steps of what I have changed and what I don't, as it allows you to see all of the areas that you have covered while trying to solve the issues. So this is more of just the refinement stages before I start playing around with mockups and things.
So, here we are then! Book number one is complete. I think this has come out really well, from the use of colours as used by El Lissitzky, through to the typeface being bold and looking somewhat Russian, and just the overall layout and composition. I went for this design as the main one as it has a rough circular composition, as naturally you would read the text, then the red line takes you down to the writer's name and there is enough black lines along with the dark cream line to swoop you back up along the left hand side before being stopped again by the red line overlapping which brings you back to the title. There is no surprise here as I have whacked them in a range of mockups because you can't go wrong with a mockup, and the design stands out really well in my opinion. It feels like something you could see in Waterstones and that is exactly what we were aiming for, and there is enough bold simplicity to attract you to the design too.
The difference a day makes.
After spending the night to rest, I came back and had a look at my designs from yesterday and was not too keen on the black circles going diagonally down, only as it starts to drag you away from the title rather than you naturally starting there. So there you go, it was only a small change but I feel like it would benefit the design massively.
After spending the night to rest, I came back and had a look at my designs from yesterday and was not too keen on the black circles going diagonally down, only as it starts to drag you away from the title rather than you naturally starting there. So there you go, it was only a small change but I feel like it would benefit the design massively.
Book number two then, this time we are working on a front cover for Oliver Twist. For this one, I decided to work in the style of Peter Grundy, so I will be definitely working in Illustrator to use lots of vector shapes and will allow all of my designs to fit into the same sort of style as Peter Grundy, which is exactly the point of this project. You can see that for about half of these sketches, I have tried to replicate his use of simple vector faces by have the basic oval with the kink for the nose as that is quite an unique characteristic of his designs, which allow you to instantly connect the artist to the style that I am recreating. I have also done a quick and simple sketch of an old workhouse along with an old workhouse light, only as I vaguely remember it being set in a workhouse. The idea behind the light one was that the light was lighting up a small part of the room, where the title is, and while it is doing that, I was able to use a very basic gradient in the same sort of way that Grundy would have done.
We're going digital now, starting with the light bulb design. It was just the case of simply recreating the sketch I did previously until it is all in vector shapes ready for tweaking. Already, I wasn't happy with the colours, the purple and orange didn't really fit with the style of Grundy and to be honest, they were just a pretty horrible combination, or at least in this context! Looking back at Peter Grundy's work, I colour picked the black, orange and white from some of his previous designs. In terms of type, I definitely need to experiment a little more after this, but I just chose a nice and easy to read font to fit the style of the rest of the design quite comfortably. While this overall design came out quite simply, it does work in the sense of the same sort of style as Peter Grundy however, I think I could work on the overall layout, maybe the typefaces too.
I wasn't too sure on the first design for Oliver Twist so I felt I should give it a go for a backup design, and this is where I'm up to. Sticking to a style slightly more in the style of Peter Grundy, I stuck with the black background and the use of orange, however I created a head in the same style as he has used in the past which would allow my designs to seep through as more his style of work, which is exactly what we were aiming for. I have used some of the skills that we learnt from the Illustrator workshops on Friday's to be quite nifty when it came to using the Pen Tool along with some of the Shape Tools to slowly build up this character in the same style of Grundy.
It is once again Mockup O'Clock here so let's celebrate that by placing these designs into some digital mockups. As always, this gives us a much clearer view of how the product or design would work in the real world to show us what works really well, or in my case, what didn't. I wasn't too sure on the font of 'Twist' as it doesn't really feel like the same style as Peter Grundy, and with the character I made in the same style as his previous work, I think it just looks too clueless, and definitely doesn't show the design that it's full of life, if anything it represents the opposite so I may have to go back in and change that up a little to make it feel more like an actual character.
It was as if by magic, I have been working on updating my backup Oliver Twist design as I had just previously suggested, so let's catch up shall we? The eye has changed, I turned it to black instead of white, which allows the eye to blend into the face of the character more, and then I have added in the famous flat cap to Oliver's head, which allows the front cover to be clearly linked into the actual story and is pretty much recognisable to everyone as the scene where he asks for some more! I feel like this design as a whole fits the bill much better than the last one even though I haven't changed much, but that is what I love about this field, the little things make all the difference, so I can sleep in peace tonight knowing that this design is a much better link between this book and Peter Grundy.
Onto the final book cover then and this one will be in the style of Vaughan Oliver. As we started the other two, I went ahead and made some very rough ketches of any ideas that popped in my head for a few minutes each. As is the way with all of my sketches, I leave colouring them in a bit late and even though I did go back in and colour them, I find it quite difficult to show off what is flowing through my mind especially with adding colours into them. Nevertheless, I have got a wide range of different ideas that I can use for this book cover of Little Women.
First of all, I am going to sort out a decent set of fonts to use, as Vaughan Oliver is very good at making fonts work when they shouldn't. He does tend to use script fonts, which as anyone who have tried using them before would know, are almost impossible to make work, yet he just walks in and uses them in a way that not many people are able to pull off. So, that would be my task then, finding some script fonts that work well with some nice serif fonts. I was on the Adobe fonts page for a while until I played around with the ones you can see above. I managed to find a few I liked, but we shall see how they work on some designs soon.
My first attempt at creating the Little Women front cover didn't go very well at all, but why not show you? There's never any reason why you wouldn't want to show off any errors you made, unless they were catastrophic of course. I found some images of some mannequins in a shop window which I thought could to the job of representing those four women fairly well without having use real images of them, and then went in and played around with different textures while using different filter presets that allow the images to overlay and intrude on the layers below. While I discovered some cool effects and new techniques, the overall results of this design just didn't work well at all, the textures were too bold and the image was too irrelevant. The title however, I really liked, the fonts work well together and are readable, all of which feels like something Vaughan Oliver would be able to do.
Onto the design I chose in the end then, and we started off with the same title from the other design as I liked it a lot, but this time I found an old image of four women on Unsplash.com wearing old styled clothing, so it fit the job much better than the mannequins image. While the textures didn't particularly work in the last design, I was keen to give them another shot so I went in and spent some time trialling different texture images using different filter presets and effects throughout Photoshop. I eventually came across a combination that looked as if I had spilt some coffee over it, but I really liked how this looked in black and white as it looked like an old image that had been played around with, which is essentially what I have done but still, it looked awesome. Obviously, I realised that if you want a book cover to stand out, or to be in the same style as Vaughan Oliver, you're going to need some colour on the design, so I had a little time finding some bright colours that I could split up and place around the design on a very low opacity. What resulted was a really cool result of pinks and oranges that made the design pop much more. It does feel a bit bottom heavy due to the white space, but if I get some free time I'll pop back and work on it, but overall it does look much better and feels like something Vaughan Oliver could produce.
Here is another selection of mockups showing this Little Women book cover design in the real world, and I have to say I am very happy with how this one came out, as I feel like it fits both the artist quite well, but also the actual book. While I haven't read the book, it does fit the age of the story fairly well, and that weathered look to the design suits that really well.
Here we go then, three artists, three books and a happy merge between all three of each. I am very pleased with how these turned out, as you can clearly tell which ones belong to which artists, but also which ones belong to the different books as I have learnt what made all the artist's style unique and used that in my designs to allow you to recognise who is who. While I did really like the Little Women design with all of those textures on, I think that the 1984 book cover was the most successful, not just as it clearly fits the design style of El Lissitzky, but because I find it to be the most aesthetically pleasing to look at out of the three designs, which definitely is what you need when creating a book cover if you want it to stand out well on the shelf of a shop.
Onto the next part of the project then, we are looking at creative book layouts ready for our next task. From what I have learnt over the past few days has been very helpful in the fact that if you want a book to be much more successful, you need to get the viewers involved with it rather than just reading some writing on a page. You can see above some very cleverly thought out book designs and layouts which stood out the most to me. From the creative use of images, or creating your own viewfinder over an image, to the genius use of colour, for example colouring the the word 'blue' with orange to allow it to be picked up upon much more easily. I have also noticed that in a few of these, there is a very strict colour palate, or a certain style of images, and this is simply just to keep it all as a set rather than the reader getting too confused with what is going on. I will have to keep these in mind with whatever we get up to later in the week.
An artist I have been meaning to mention for a while now is David Carson. I was very lucky with the fact that he did a talk in Bury St Edmunds a couple years ago which we got to visit with college and to hear the way he works was quite eye opening. Now I won't go through everything he said, I will just mention one thing that stood out to me. When he worked with a client a few years ago that wanted a simple logo, he came back with nearly 100 different logo ideas, all of which he put in a slideshow for us to watch as little parts change just from his experiments. What I like about Carson's work and style is that he pushes design right up the the line of what is acceptable, or sometimes even over that line, and that is what gives him his unique style of text and the use of layers. As you can see above, he likes to play around with the layout so much that sometimes you can't even read what the writing says, but this is what gets the viewers involved and interested in the designs, as they will look at it longer to work out what is going on, and because of that, they will tend to be much more interested in what it is about, yet another thing I will have to remember when creating my next task.
Before I forget to mention, here is a link to Carson's website as it is quite interesting. Once again, he is getting people more involved in his designs as the website goes from left to right rather than from the top to the bottom, because why would you do what everyone else does? Take a look:
Before I forget to mention, here is a link to Carson's website as it is quite interesting. Once again, he is getting people more involved in his designs as the website goes from left to right rather than from the top to the bottom, because why would you do what everyone else does? Take a look:
So, we move onto the final boss of this project with one target in mind, an eight page magazine about a chosen song. This magazine is going to be a insight into what goes through our heads as designers when looking at the lyrics of this chosen song. The song I chose out of the list was 'The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener'. Now then, to start off, I have done some very rough sketches for the first couple of pages, on the ideas of having a castle in the clouds as the lyrics suggest. For some reason, I was originally going to do double page spreads like a normal person, but sadly as you will see as the project evolves, I ended up doing one design per page which just didn't flow as well as I'd have liked it to, but at least you can see shortly that I started off in the right place! Also, I am aware that these sketches aren't in much detail and are just in pencil, but since it is still new to me, it is something I can work on in the future to clear up my own ideas on paper before going digital.
We were told to include the lyrics of the song in the magazine so the first thing I did was chose an appropriate song to fit not just the song but the entire design style of the magazine, and naturally I couldn't decide straight away so instead, I worked on creating the first page including a castle in the air in their dreams. To get the design started, I found some nice and clear images on Unsplash.com as per usual, one being of a nice sunset sky, and one of an old castle with which I cut out the background so that I could place it underneath the cloud in the other image. To get the effect of the castle being in a dream, I played around with some of the filter presets on Photoshop until I found 'Overlay' which made it somewhat transparent and yet glowing after I copy and pasted one right next to it on the same settings just slightly out of line, which I felt suited it perfectly.
Well it didn't take long until I gave this whole font debacle another look, and after looking back at David Carson's work, I wondered if I could create a typeface in his sort of chaotic style of design, and to do this, I chose two slightly different fonts and simply lined them up enough to still be readable, but to have enough going on that makes it interesting to look at. The next thing I did to make it feel a little more like Carson's style was playing around with the actual layout of the text and its size, so you can see that I made the part about the castle that bit bigger so you know that is the part being used in the design. I really liked this style of overlapped text and I dare say that I'll come back to this in future projects.
Well it didn't take long until I gave this whole font debacle another look, and after looking back at David Carson's work, I wondered if I could create a typeface in his sort of chaotic style of design, and to do this, I chose two slightly different fonts and simply lined them up enough to still be readable, but to have enough going on that makes it interesting to look at. The next thing I did to make it feel a little more like Carson's style was playing around with the actual layout of the text and its size, so you can see that I made the part about the castle that bit bigger so you know that is the part being used in the design. I really liked this style of overlapped text and I dare say that I'll come back to this in future projects.
Onto the next page then, and to carry on with the double page spread, I simply used the same background image but flipped it so that there is still a recognisable centre to the page, but also to keep the same colours brewing, and to show that this is the next page. I really the lyric 'you wish that you were standing in their shoes' for this page, so with that in mind, I worked on having a pair of shoes with a faint outline of someone standing in them, then to show the thought of someone wanting to be in them a bit more, I added in another faint image of a hand which is trying to grab the shoes as if you were trying to take them to wear.
We do love a mockup here don't we, well here's another. This one is from Anthony Boyd's mockups which is a very handy website! This one of a magazine shows what these designs would look like in the real world, and I have to say, I think they work quite well. The colours and the overall layout are a little simple, but the messages get across from the lyrics and that's all I ask for, we shall see how well they stand once I have some other designs to compare them to.
I should have started with the front cover, I know, but we're here now! While scrolling through Unsplash for some grass related images, I came across this one of someone cutting what looks to be either a football or a cricket pitch, but either way, I really liked the way this photo had been taken and felt it would work well with my magazine. The title of this song was about another man's grass always being greener, so I thought, why not turn part of the image even greener so it is incredibly green, which I did by playing with the contrast settings, but I had a small brain fart which led to me thinking that the person on the photo could actually be taking revenge on this other man having brighter grass. So, I went in with the Polygonal Selection Tool on Photoshop and selected the area that had already been cut in the original photo and then turned it black and white, as if he is getting rid of this other man's grass. I felt like this properly have the message of the title and that worked really well. When it came to the text for the title, I stuck to the same overlapped typefaces that I used in the other pages and placed it somewhere that stood out well near the top of the page, and you may notice that I made the 'Greener' black instead of white and just gave that part a white background. Well, that wasn't just done pointlessly, as for starters, it stands out much better, but it is to also play with your mind a little. So you would read it as it says, being greener and all, but the word isn't greener, it's just black and white, but your mind is able to connect the two and I feel like that worked quite well as a small little detail on the side.
No surprises here the, this is just a simple mockup of the front cover on the front of a magazine. I feel like this design works really well as green and greys work well together, but obviously, this doesn't match my two previous designs, but I much prefer this style to the other two so I may look at a fresh start after learning just how much better this layout and colour scheme works.
Well I was correct in giving myself a fresh start. I went back and decided to keep the first page, but just edit it to be back and white, my thinking behind this was to allow for the magazine to become much greener as the pages near the end, so obviously there will be no green for these pages. Again, I'm still not certain on both of these designs together, but I'll wait and see if they work better as a set when they are all put together. These designs are still fairly simple, but I may come back in and add any extra details if I need to, but sometimes, simple just works.
Wow, this makes a change! Wait, no, sorry I was wrong, here's yet another mockup. I'm telling you, you can't go wrong with these. This mockup shows not only these two pages, but also the front cover that I had made using the greys and greens, and straight away you can see that there is more connecting the designs all together now than the previous ones, which allows this to feel more like a set and more like it's all from the same song which was what we were going for!
Onto the next set of designs then, starting with a page about 'getting your feet on the ground'. I started off with another image of grass, which I edited to only keep the green of the grass involved and then the background black and white. This allows my idea of letting a small piece of green in the designs to build up as the song goes on. The idea of putting your feet on the ground has been exaggerated by using this image of someone jumping in the air. The way the feet are looking at landing on the ground are just far enough out of alignment of perspective that they kind of work well together as it is a recognisable image yet is somewhat out of line that it is interesting to look at. To finish off this page, I added in the next segment of the lyrics in this same style typeface as I used in the previous pages to keep up the continuity.
For the next page, I wanted to carry on with this retro style of collaging as I feel like it is working really nicely and I have learnt how to layer up all the different images along with different textures to produce some really smart, rustic designs that I feel have worked really well. To start off with this design, I was thinking about how to incorporate the idea of staying in bed 'till nearly three'. To do this, I wanted to use a sunset in the background as if we were in a dream as I find them very relaxing, but obviously a sunset isn't very green, so I messed about with the colour balance tools in Photoshop to enhance the sunset to become very green. I then copy and pasted all what was green onto a new layer above so that I could change the rest of the image into black and white. The idea of dreams are often very surreal and that fits the style of these retro collages quite nicely with the perspective and lighting being slightly out of line which makes them stand out nicely. To extend that surreal feeling, I found an image of a hand, turned it into black and white, then turned an old styled bedside alarm clock, which is relatively close to the time referred in the lyrics, into being green and fitting inside the hand as if he is holding it up towards his face. While this is still quite a simple design, I feel like it works quite well and stands out nicely while still fitting into the same net as all of the other designs that I've done so far.
Here is a little mockup of the last couple of pages just so I can keep checking in on how the magazine is looking in the real world, and once again I am fairly happy with how it's taking shape. I am still loving this black and white style with bits of green being sprinkled around as it seems to stand out quite nicely against each other.
Onto the last couple of pages then and I wanted to keep to the use of a small amount of green on the designs, so I chose an image off of Unsplash.com once again, but one which had a man standing in the distance on a grassy field. I decided to link this image back to the front cover, the thought of someone having nice and bright green grass, but having part of it turned black and white, so I went in and made it look as if someone was painting the grass black and white using a paint roller. Now, this looks odd obviously as you can't do that in real life, and even if you could, you couldn't do it from the angle I created in this design, but that is why I really like this design, as it is once again something happening in the design that doesn't make sense but makes it interesting to look at. Once again, I have added in the next part of the lyrics in this David Carson styled typeface.
For the last page in the magazine, I was going to go for an incredibly bright green page, but that is something that the viewers would expect as the song comes to the end, so I changed my mind and searched for an image of either a very muddy festival ground or something, that was until I found this image of some very dead grass, so I thought why wouldn't I use this for the end. The dead and very dry grass goes against the idea of someone else always having much greener grass than yours, but that is why I quite like it. As a bit of a more random feature, I just placed in the image of someone floating above the grass, almost as if that have completed their task of eliminating the other man's greener grass. To round the design off, I added in the text in the same style as the other pages, and then a couple of textures over the top on some very low opacities to make it all feel a little more weathered and to allow the images to feel more like one instead of it feeling completely separate. The textures should allow the design to feel a little lighter which should allow it to fit in fairly well with the other designs.
Here is yet another mockup showing what the last two pages look like along with the front cover, and while the are both a little different to each other, I think there is enough of a style that links the pair to all of the other pages too.
I didn't want to change too much for the background, so I went in with the same image used in the front cover, except i used some of the selection tools and patch tools to delete the man cutting the grass and replaced him with the grass so that the image is now just a black and white freshly cut grass. Also, rather than putting in the title once again, I decided to add in the text saying 'not today!' as if someone had come up and taken away off of their green grass and wanted to boast about it. I made that in a light brown so that it can be seen as if some had kicked it out of the dirt.
Here is the last mockup of these designs then, and it is another fairly simple design, but there is no need to overcomplicate things at this stage, it works well and it does its job by finishing off the story of the magazine. I do quite like how this part came out and will be nice to how it looks with all of the other designs.
Issuu Magazine Mockup website.
Here it is then, the entire magazine. Feel free to click the link above to see the magazine in all its glory in one giant magazine mockup. Overall, I am fairly happy with how it came out, especially with the colour scheme and retro collaging style that I used in the designs, but I think if I stuck with the idea of creating complete double page spreads like I thought of at the start, then I would have been able to have a complete set that would flow much better, but nevertheless, I like how it turned out despite it feeling a little rushed. I have learnt to take more time with the layout of the magazine for next time and to much more confident with using different sizes for the pages or different techniques to allow the viewers to be more involved rather than creating just 8 random pages for the magazine, but at least now I know! I love how this looks in the mockups as the green and greys go together very nicely and the text in the style of David Carson fits together to tell the story of 'The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener'.
Here it is then, the entire magazine. Feel free to click the link above to see the magazine in all its glory in one giant magazine mockup. Overall, I am fairly happy with how it came out, especially with the colour scheme and retro collaging style that I used in the designs, but I think if I stuck with the idea of creating complete double page spreads like I thought of at the start, then I would have been able to have a complete set that would flow much better, but nevertheless, I like how it turned out despite it feeling a little rushed. I have learnt to take more time with the layout of the magazine for next time and to much more confident with using different sizes for the pages or different techniques to allow the viewers to be more involved rather than creating just 8 random pages for the magazine, but at least now I know! I love how this looks in the mockups as the green and greys go together very nicely and the text in the style of David Carson fits together to tell the story of 'The Other Man's Grass Is Always Greener'.