#freyascribbles

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. 

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.

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. 

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.

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

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. 

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

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.