404 - Studio Brief 2 - What is a book? Sketches

Redrawn Redrawn Sleeves 

After a crit for this brief the idea for the book changed and now it is based around my redrawn versions of my favourite record sleeves . This is so that the book is different to the election of book that exist on good record sleeve designs, this gives my book a more unique feel and be more different but also fit better as a set of covers as now they will all have similar house style/illustration style. the fixes a major issues i had when i was created a few mock up ideas of how to display the covers as they were all veer different it was hard to find a style that could match them together and link them as book. This way still shows the design of the sleeves i like but gives it my own touch and group that as set is therefore works better for a book. Record sleeve are designed as separate pieces are art, this is why it was hard to group them together compared to most photography books where the picture have been selected to match and work with each other, this was a collection of the designs i liked but this style allowed them to be grouped a set and make the book read/match/have a constant page design and a house style better. 

First i drew a test of one of the cover i was including manually, i did this to experiment with the thickness of the lines to see which pen i would draw the set with but when i was creating this sample test i found it very hard to create a cover that looked like the original even for what i thought would have been one of the more simple covers to do. This made me think that if i wanted to include compelling covers with outstanding design it would be very hard if they had much detail to recreate them effectively manual. This made me think it would be better to draw other the cover on illustrator, this will create a vector which is easier to apply to a the book without pixilation and of a higher quailty than scanned in illustrations to. I could create more accurate covers that would be the same style but more useable for my book as the quailty would be better so i experimented with doing the same style of line drawn imagery on my mac using a wacom tablet.

first copied the cover over so i could draw over the accurate lines

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drew over the image i orange so i could see the lines i was creating, i didn't aim for perfect lines or perfectly straight edges  or curves for the drawing, this is as in the research into different illustration styles it was clear that illustrations look better when them are more imperfect,  as it gives them a feel of personality as them seem different every time  and this also 
looks more like they have be create my a person rather than a computer which i feel is something i want to show in my book. As this book is my personal drawing and personal favourite cover i feel it need to have a less strict more personal feel so imperfect lines like this will work better to portray this.

As this has been created on illustrator i will quickly experiment using different weight and brushes to see which works better, this will make sure that i pick the correct style for the drawings, some of the experiments have ridiculous effect on but i wanted to test them just to see the effect as this brush would be suitable for some types of illustration. 

One i selected to use 

weight - 1pt

brush - 5pt. rounded

 This brush i feel reflect the styles of the artists i looked at better, as well as the weight and the curve of the line is noticeable and clear but it shows the imperfection of the lines without making the drawing look to incorrect. The brush round off a percentage of the mistakes/quivers made when tracing the image which means the image is accurate therefore will be recognizable but it doesn't completely smooth out the line so it still clear this has been hand drawn rather than produced to be perfect, it still has it personal touch but can be recognized as what it is because of this. I will use this style for all the illustrations created for this brief. 

As i had a selection of records i wanted to include on my 20 pages that would have a design on, i decide to drawn more than 20 as i feel that some of sleeves won't suit this style of illustration that i am aiming from and that i researched, this style won't look good for some off the covers i wanted to include so if i drawn more i can then feedback on which people feel as the most successful drawn images and then i will include the top 20. 

Having a range of different sleeves that have very different designs will make sure that the cover on the double page spreads will match and work as pages next to each other, the need to enhance each other to make sure the pages flow like seen in the research into existing book of this style. This research highlighted how important it is to make sure that the album next to each other and the order they are placed in is thought out as it can make all the difference to the layout/feel of the pages. If i draw more than 20 i can make sure i have choice if i feel a double page spread doesn't look correct due to the choice of cover i can then change it or subtitle it for another cover that is a better fit . It gives me more room of experimentation and to change pages that don't fit together.

Covers