was asked to see a bit more of my process of making my bookmarks! I don't save much process but I have an ongoing concept document and I can ramble about things for Ages so here's some of that:
This was my very first group of sketches after the initial mushrooms I did (which were planned/lined traditionally). As you can see, some are almost identical to how they ended up, some changed a lot, some didn't go anywhere. the book spines I guess I just started like that and developed them further in the actual final file.
Below is kinda 1.5 I guess (crossed off after I completed them, I just hid that layer on the other images), there's the couple newest dagger ones, purple/yellow fungi (different species at this point, I just wanted those colours), very rough colour blocks for the book spines I already had + new ideas just to see all the colours together..
shifted those vague book shaped blobs here to work on them better. some, like the dragon, I just figured out in the proper file, the rest are clearly pretty worked out at this point already. I'm not sure if I'll do the lichen since I already have a bunch of green ones, and I really want to do a wizard spells kinda vibe I just can NOT figure out a colour palette or what objects to use for it.
I've been prioritising the book spines since they sell way better than the daggers/swords and I think are the most unique, but I do want to make more swords because ultimately i just do what i want........ have almost finished the jungle & dark water ones which is probably where I'll stop for now.
[I also haven't 100% decided on the dark or light version of the snowy book - I will print proofs of both. I like the contrast of the dark one but I think the light one might look better as a physical object]
As far as decision making, I start with ideas/colours I like obviously, but I also think about:
what colour palettes are common on book covers with similar themes (I often think of a few books I like to match them to specifically)
what colours/palettes have I not used yet? I like to have a rainbow of bookmark designs. (you can see in the concepts above I've got a little group of some colours I might use for new ones...)
what genre/niche of book have I not covered much of yet (how I came to do a couple more horror & sci-fi - ish ones)
what other slightly different imagery or design element can I add in to the main theme to make it a bit more interesting? (like: the celestial theme on the cards/coins one; the key on the fantasy map, there's some spiderwebs on the eldritch one #tma)
also all of them (except some of the fungi) are different on the back in some form! either subtly (slightly different flame overlap) or very obviously (different colour or details, broken sword, closed angel eye)
my only 'limits' really are keeping some level of consistency with the different types, ie: fungi designs all have a squared bottom shape; the swords all have a wider background element (often kinda elements or environments?), the daggers have more closeup specific objects as a background; the books are either fantasy or sciencey themed. if I ever choose to do non-book or non-sword/dagger bookmarks I would want to do a set, not just having a random bookmark that's a different kind of weapon or something
Oh, the other relevant thing to the book designs is that I briefly explored if I could get special versions made with gold/silver foil on the spine designs - only sparkly ink was an option, and that wasn't obvious enough to be worth it. But that is what made me end up doing these matching sticker designs - because metallic effects can be done on stickers! Some of these I did after the matching bookmark design, some before.
Also I have speedpaints of some of these on tiktok: bones, crystal dagger, potions, plants part 2, crystals, fire, water, honey, orange fungi, purple roses, a couple daggers, raven, murderbot, sabran, ead. mostly just parts of the process on the rare occasion I remembered to record some.
Also since I'm here? I made graphs of all my bookmark sales at events since late 2023
This doesn't include the sets that I used to sell (5 swords, 6 daggers, 5 book spines), since I don't sell them as sets anymore in person. I keep making new designs and it's annoying to update sets constantly (also, table space)
I didn't include the fandom designs in the rest of this post since I did them kinda separately but here's the sales for those too. obviously I sell them mostly online!
and below is all of the total bookmarks I've ordered (as in the numbers I requested from my manu - not counting the extras they sometimes give me or bgrade/damaged ones, etc). I also of course have a thousand or so in stock that I haven't sold yet
(I've been counting the 3 priory designs in one total here, which is why it's far above the others)
organised by type, then in order from when I made them. obviously some have been around for 4 years so I've had more time to sell more of them, hence the general downward curves
we are approaching 10k. that's a lot of bookmarks. wow thanks!
gummygunk
discoholicmusic
blakekathryn
snowghoul
vaporwave
gracieabrams
