#freyascribbles

[freyabel-blog]

Penguin Book Cover Competition

I decided to enter the book Cover competition, for the Children’s Fiction Cover, The Secret Diary of Adrien Mole Aged 13 1/2. I really enjoyed making this cover. My idea behind the design is falling into adulthood which I feel really sums up this book. The objects are falling around him like life being thrown at him. I wanted this all to be falling into the diary like emotions and events being sprawled onto the pages. The blurb and layout can be altered as the type is a little small and it would be nice if it were to follow the lines of the diary. 

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

This is the end result for the cover front and back. The design is quite simple and slightly rushed. I feel this could be made much more engaging by more plants and use of bright colours. However, I don’t want to over complicate the design. I will revist.

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

Selection of my favourite pages from the finished book. I am overall pleased with the layouts displayed. However, there is still a lot of development that needs to be done in order to make this book as good as it can be. I need to experiment further with some pages layouts and understand how I position my characters so that the book is fluid and encourages the reader to pursue the next page. I will definitely revisit this project and play around with new page design and maybe altering the story so the ending is a little more fulfilling. 

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

Sample plan of a page layout. I will try and replicate and experiment with pages in my sketchbook before digitally creating, howere this will be dependant on time scale as I would like to have a finished book at the end of 5 week if possible. I want to remind myself that sometimes less is more and some pages can be more sparse, like this one, with the right sort of illustration and text layout.

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

Really rough outline of the story idea, page by page. This is page 2 of the storyboard.

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

Character development then went undergo. Initially I did rough sketches in my sketchbook and then converted these ideas by digital means. I much prefer the digital images, they are much more vibrant. I chose a cheetah because they have seen massive deline in the past 100 years and aren’t one of the most popular animal characters choices in books. 

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

The first thing to do was investigate and understand the terrain that the book will be set in. Hand drawn responses to images I have sourced from the internet and friends who have visited.

More basic and simple designs, maybe better for a picture book?

[freyabel-blog]

The Narrative Project, protecting endangered animals.

The first thing to do was investigate and understand the terrain that the book will be set in. Hand drawn responses to images I have sourced from the internet and friends who have visited.