Project 4
Research
Book 1
Drawing for the Absolute Beginner: A Clear & Easy Guide to Successful Drawing by Mark and Mary Willenbrink
“We hope you will regain that childlike passion for making art and learning without critiquing yourself harshly. We won’t make you hang it on the fridge, but we do suggest you save your artwork because it will show your progress and increase your confidence as you go.” — Mark and Mary
Book 2
The Complete Guide to Perspective Drawing by Craig Attebery
Computers can calculate perspective angles and create a drawing for us, but the spontaneity of mark making, the tactile quality of a writing surface, the weight of a drawing instrument, and the immediacy of the human touch are sensations that keep traditional drawing skills perpetually relevant.
Book 3
Heads, Features, and Faces by George Bridgman
Four features — eye, nose, mouth, ear — are dealt with in detail. Sections on light and shade, comparative measurements, and principles of cube and oval construction further enhance the scope of the book. The finely executed drawings complement the textual material, illustrating all important concepts.
Process Documentation
Printed Book Cover (6.25" W x 9.5" H each side)
2019
Individual Project
About the Project
The project was done as an assignment in the Communication Design Fundamentals class, taught by Suzanne Choi. The project involved choosing a series of (potentially fictacious) books, creating three book covers for a series of books of the same size that incorporate textual information from the chosen book, while using a limited amount of hues and typefaces. The goal of the project was to explore typographical, color, and spatial hierarchy, and the balance between using those elements to effectively convey information and to create a visually pleasing illustration.
As shown in the above research post, I chose three educational drawing books of different topics and levels to make covers for, in order to demonstrate a progression in experience and topics.
Project Process
Starting from the beginning, I knew I wanted to create book covers that are simple in layout and design, without elaborate illustrations. This is consistent with the spirit of learning drawing — to create from scratch, which oftentimes might not be as elaborate. Many of my initial sketches (above) incorporated imagery from existing sources online, such as the ones on perspective, and as a result I decided to not use them for originality reasons.
Immediately, upon advice of Suzanne, I conducted some typeface research on Google Fonts and settled on Amatic SC, a handwritten font, as the primary and title font, and Josefin Slab, which was listed as a “good pairing” to Amatic SC, as a secondary font for the quote on the back. Initially I had the author name on the front cover in the secondary font, though upon receiving feedback on the multiple fonts on the cover converted the author to Amatic SC as well.
In the initial digital iterations, I considered placing ameteurish drawings on the cover of the drawing book for beginners. However, after receiving feedback on how a book for beginners should not actually have beginner drawings on the cover, I replaced them with a blank canvas. I also decided that the shape drawings on the back cover should form a progression through the three books. In general, I felt that the illustrations should have something to do with the title and the intended content — a blank canvas for the beginner, different perspectives for the perspective book, and face proportions for the final one on features and faces.
For the background, initially I intended on using plain pastel colors, as seen in the initial iterations, though before the crit (see above) I decided to introduce gradients to liven up the cover and add dynamism without adding additional illustrations. After receiving advice during the crit, I tuned the gradient to be more vibrant and visually appealing, by changing the first book from grey to light green, and the other ones to have less intense shades of blue and red. The vibrancy of the colors, in my opinion, suited the theme of learning drawing well. There was also a gradient direction discrepancy issue (45 degrees vs. horizontal) between the pre-crit and final versions, which was fixed.
As seen in the above pre-crit versions, I had only a rough idea of the content of the third book cover, which was supposed to have the highest complexity out of the three due to the progression. Due to my lack of drawing skills, I was unable to produce a satisfactory face drawing with lots of details for the front cover. However, after receiving feedback from the crit, I used the idea of using standard proportions known in drawing (5 eyes as width, 1/2 fractions for the vertical distances) overlayed on top of a trace of my own face as an illustration showing what a book on drawing faces could contain. I also developed the shape drawings on the back further to better fit the progression in complexity.
Overall, I was fairly satisfied with the outcome of the project, though if I had more time to work on it I would attempt to polish up the drawings further.
