Creating Front Cover Font

After doing more research on the context of the short story, the 'The Greatest Man in the World' was written in 1945. I decided that using a font, relating to this time would represent the pragmatics and context of the story. Fonts such as 'Petroglyph' and 'Dusty Rose' represent the time period but didn't show the personality of the character 'Jack Pal'. I decided to combine the structure of the 1940s fonts, but give them a rough and scruffy personality, symbolising the era and characters in the book.

Font inspired by 1940s font, and using biro, given a rough edge. 

Work in Progress screenshots of arranging font into text on cover.

Final arrangement of text on cover. The text is central, allowing the men to be placed around the text. The 'est' on Greatest is out of line, which could symbolise the behaviour and character of 'Jack' or the accent or decent of the monoplane. I believe this font conveys the time period of the story, and also foreshadows the unusual characters in the story, shown by the rough typography.

Planning and Creating Background Textures

experimenting with watercolour, acrylic, tissue paper and masking fluid to create cloud textures.

Subtle textures that border the pages

Full pages of cloud textures for front pages

Pages with watercolour texture to add around pages. Could be cropped or zoomed in InDesign

textured backgrounds on front pages of short story

textures on pages with book text

watercolour textures for illustrated pages, covering corners of double page spreads

Textures on pages in InDesign, with illustrations overlaid

experimenting with sizes and shapes of textures in InDesign

Illustration Work In Progress 5

Illustration of Government Officials in short story, using Blue and Brown limited colour palette, made with watercolour and graphite.

Using photoshop to remove paper background.

Using InDesign to wrap text around image on pages. 

Illustrations Work In Progress 4

Monoplane illustration using watercolour and graphite. 

Using the transform rotate tool and text wrap tool to enlarge and shape text around image

Using photoshop to remove page from illustration. 

Illustrations Work In Progress 3

Illustration of church for the funeral scene at the end of the book, using the limited colour scheme with greens. 

Scanned in illustration with paper rubbed out and straightened.   

Close up showing the graphite marks and shading of watercolour and graphite.

Using text wrap in InDesign to create a border of text around the illustration. 

Illustrations Work In Progress 2

I have also created an illustration based of another image from my contact sheet, in keeping with the styles of Simon Vaeth, as well as continuing the limited colour palette and the characteristics of the character of Jack's Mother. 

Full illustration of character Jack's Mother

Using photoshop to remove background using the eraser tool.

Using the wrap text tool in InDesign, I have created a border of text around the image

Illustrations Work In Progress 1

Illustration of character, Jack Pal for short story, based of image from contact sheet. 

Illustration and contact sheet

Using photoshop to remove white background

Close up images showing graphite and watercolour layers. Illustrations use a muted hue limited colour palette.

Illustration in InDesign.