#chapter banner

So, when we started this story, I told her in no uncertain terms that -- yes, I would make chapter images, but I was just going to keep it simple. I wasn’t going to do full illustrations, or spend hours and hours on each of them.

Well. I stayed true to one of those things. I didn’t end up making full illustrations... but the idea we came up with took on a life of its own. Each chapter, we would choose an important document or object that had some amount of significance to the story of that chapter, and I would use some good old fashioned Photoshop wizardry to bring it to life.

At first, it was pretty simple. A short note. A torn letter. A pristine greeting card. But as the chapters commenced and we started building up to some of our more interesting ideas, the complexity of the images swelled in proportion as well. Soon I was creating a brochure for a fictional nonprofit organization (which took forever by the way), depicting broken, burnt, and old things, pulling together a bit of conceptual magic we’d written about in chapter 3...

Fun fact: The image pictured above is actually a remake of Ch 3′s banner, since we felt the old one didn’t quite fit into the aesthetic as a whole anymore. But that’s the thing. I’m really too invested in the look and feel of these to “keep it simple”-- I really ought to know that about myself by now, haha.

I wouldn’t call these banners masterpieces or anything. In fact, some of them were extremely easy to make. However, I’ve been having fun with them, and I hope they add a little something to the experience. A little spice of life, you might say. Because in the end, I just want to do everything I can to harmonize the elements of the story we’re telling, to help it all come together. I want it to feel important. Thoughtful. Well-loved.