#penguinbook

Today, I produced these mixed media illustrations. I used words from my penguin book, newspapers and other old books to create my typography mixed media illustrations. The materials I used was collage, acrylic paint, ink, watercolour and sharpies. 

Firstly, I started by getting acrylic black paint and painting patterns on my blank piece of card for my background. I used black as I wanted a gruesome and dark looking background to really make my work stand out. After they had all dried I started hunting through newspapers, my penguin book and old books for words that I could rearrange and create quotes that you question what they mean. 

Next I stuck down all the words I choose on each of the backgrounds and started to think about my typography design. I decided to stick with gruesome colours such as black and red. The reason being the quotes I designed are very creepy and mysterious. I used a red acrylic paint to paint on different letters to match the letters that are in all my quotes. Once they dried I went in with sharpie and drew on bold black letters from  my quotes as well. I made some of the letters overlap, I changed the size and angle of the letters.

After reviewing my first full design I felt like it lacked some colour and the characters were too small. I originally had their faces blank so for my final I added faces onto them and I also made the circle bigger and I removed the smaller mirrors from around it. The smaller mirrors around the circle needed to be symmetrical but I wouldn't have enough room for the reviews and the title so I decided they would be a better fit for the back of my cover. 

I also changed the colour of the font within the mirrors to black and made them colourful as I wanted to add more variations of colour to the back and front. I then added magenta and green around the new circle on the front cover to link the other to characters to the main cover. For the spine I added two smaller mirror details and then I made the font smaller as it was taking up a lot of the space on the template. 

Overall after making these changes I am happy with the outcome. I like how the font stands out with the colours and how all of the designs match my theme and each other. I didn't want to use too much imagery that would give away the story so focusing on the characters was the best I could do to develop instead of my other sketches. 

For my new projects I will be doing a self directed brief and a live brief. 

My live brief will be participating in the penguin live brief and creating a book cover design for the book ‘‘life isn’t all ha ha hee hee’ by Meera Syal.