I looked at images of the stories I was illustrating the covers for to get an idea of colours for each one. It was difficult to get a different colour for each which was still distinctive to the story and different from the others. I wanted them to all stand out individually and work as a set so I tried to create a palette of the same tone.
Throughout the whole process typography was a very important and considered decision as it had to express the story and fit with the illustration. I looked at images on google of past type decisions for the story to aid my decisions.
My development and decision making from my original sketches to final designs:
James & the Giant Peach was the easiest to do as my sketch idea worked and was visually strong so I left it as it was.
The BFG was quite plain at first and my concept for the books was to use the top and bottom bars of the design of the original penguin books. Although this one used the bottom on I felt the top bar looked a bit excluded from the illustration. I decided to create a background using the orphanage from the story to add more detail and bring in the top bar to the design.
The Secret Garden was difficult and I tried numerous ways of altering it such as added a wood grain pattern and experimenting with variants of the keyhole and door handle in size and position. As pointed out by people it didn't fit the illustration style of the other books and I realised it was forcing the idea I was trying to do whereas the others worked themselves. I did like the whole door handle rather than just the keyhole so to create a bit more of an interesting and appropriate illustration I added the vines. I felt that this added to the design and also was more relevant to the story, showing the true nature of the tale.
Peter pan was really hard as again the bottom bar was in use but the top bar wasn't. Also the hat was hard to fit right at the bottom as its angled but needed to occupy the width of space of the bar at the bottom. To make the design more interesting I added the skyline and the character tinkerbell to create a magical essence. I'm still not convinced by the design but will ask for feedback on reworking it.
It was becoming obvious that all my sketches were to simple and stripped back, especially to attract children. I tried the skyline I had experimented with peter pan but decided to look back at some story images to get more appropriate and creative ideas. I saw the trees and greenery in the images and therefore added an array of tree and vines hanging over the top.
I struggled to find something to fit the top of my Matilda sketch. I tried the cards from the scenes of her playing with her powers as it is a heavily recognised image especially as children watch films more than read books. I also tried the salamander that she catches with her friends which escaped. However relevant these didn't fit with the bottom image. I decided to try to continue with the book theme and do a book shelve. I also added details like the book title and pages in the book just to give more depth and interest to the image.
The Pinocchio sketch from the beginning I knew needed tweaking as the bars weren't really part of the illustration. I used a disney illustration to create my image of Pinocchio as thats what he is recognised as looking at to the generation. As he was a puppet on stage I added curtains to again make it more interesting and obvious. I experimenting using a different brush stroke that I had used in some of the other covers as I felt the illustration wasn't right.
I tried using different colours to take out some of the detail of him and highlighting key characteristics such as his hat and bow. I quite liked the silhouette of him as it got rid of the detail and was less an image of Disney and more like the other illustrations I had done myself. It was hard to create a character who was recognisable as themselves but not like an image of Disney or other illustrator as thats what people see them as because thats how they've been made well known.
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