FINAL BOOK COVER – PENGUIN COMPETITION

I had chosen this book out of the three options after seeing its previous covers and finding them very classic, boring and extremely unappealing. Therefore I wanted to take this challenge and create something more eye catching, more intriguing and more appealing to the audience. I believe I did manage to do this, but that’s a personal opinion. I feel at least that I accomplished to do what I had set off to do and I was satisfied with how my final work looked.  I didn’t win the competition but I really do feel that I had taken on the challenge successfully.

WORK

Once I had two photos to work with and I had edited them to my liking, edited them properly so that they would convey this idea of upside down situation, I started composing all the separate elements together and creating a couple of options, changing the lettering on the title and author’s name and where/how they were placed.

The covers were coming together well, I was starting to get an idea of which look I liked best, but with this photo I wasn’t quite satisfied yet. It wasn’t transmitting what I had in mind.

2ND PHOTO COMPOSITIONS

This photo worked a lot better for my concept from the get go, and putting it all together with the rest of the elements only confirmed that.

1ST IDEAS & 1ST SKETCHES

I had a couple of first ideas based on some selected quotes from the book that had particularly interested me and showed different sides of the book, different sides I could use as a theme for the front cover.

RESEARCH & INSPIRATION

Once I had an idea I liked and wanted to work with, I needed to do a little research, find some inspiration. My idea was to show this situation of reverse racism that was taking place in the book. I wanted to convey this by showing famous moments in history where black people suffered injustice by the hand of white people and turn that around. Therefore I started looking into recent events such as Black Lives Matter but didn’t find anything that triggered my interest. I wanted something more historical. And what could fit better then photos of the first time a black student went to an all white school?

BLACK LIVES MATTER //

FILE – In this Saturday, July 9, 2016 file photo, police officers arrest activist DeRay McKesson during a protest along Airline Highway, a major road that passes in front of the Baton Rouge Police Department headquarters in Baton Rouge, La., after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by two white Baton Rouge police officers. OurStates.org, a new initiative launched by Black Lives Matter activists is trying to re-focus the movement’s efforts to state capitols, building on the momentum at the federal level to push back against President Donald Trump’s political agenda, targeting legislation on issues like policing and immigration. (AP Photo/Max Becherer, File)

BLACK INTEGRATION IN ALL WHITE HIGH SCHOOLS

A LITTLE GALLERY OF PHOTOS OF MY FINAL PIECE

//Close up//

TURNING POINT

Although I had done all of this work and thought it looked good, I was losing interest. I was starting to question whether I really wanted to do this, realizing that although graphic novels are a big part of my visual identity and source of inspiration, they are not a hobby of mine, I don’t read them in my free time, it is not something I enjoy. So why was I making one? And at the same time that I was thinking all this I was also working on another project (tutor project) and creating work that I was very excited about, where I was really expressing myself and felt completely free of boundaries or obligations, I was just creating work for myself and that work looked like me, I owned it. This made me realise that what I was creating for this project, was not my work, I was trying too hard and it wasn’t flowing naturally. I needed to change directions. So I let go of everything and just illustrated what I wanted, my feelings about my mum (see the two illustrations on the left). And I felt free, like myself again. This is where I belonged and that’s what I wanted to do.

DISCOVERING WILLIAM STOUT

I have to mention William Stout as I believe he was part of what made me realize that what I was doing was not enough. Whilst I was working on my graphic novel and going back and forth to my research I discovered William Stout and fell completely in love and realized that actually, a couple years ago I had bought a book about Jazz and blues music because the illustrations were absolutely extraordinary (see portrait below). Right then Stout became one of my favorite illustrators and motivated me to do more and better, bigger, bolder, brighter!

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Sout, 1/6/11, 1:16 PM, 8C, 4508×4612 (1058+2205), 125%, Repro 2.2 v2, 1/30 s, R39.4, G29.8, B49.6

https://www.williamstout.com/

KB2765_C201_06, 09-05-2005, 15:39, 8C, 2946×3768 (2922+2018), 100%, Hogtep_Literat, 1/120 s, R42.7, G25.2, B34.3

KB2765_C201_03, 09-05-2005, 15:32, 8C, 5626×3768 (230+2126), 100%, Hogtep_Literat, 1/120 s, R42.7, G25.2, B34.3

Les Mains Libres

Paul Eluard & Man Ray

“Man Ray offered artists in all media an example of a creative intelligence that, in its ‘pursuit of pleasure and liberty’ unlocked every door it came to and walked freely where it would” (ARTnews, “The Century’s 25 Most Influential Artists”).

FIRST EDITION, one of only 675 numbered copies, illustrated throughout with full-page plates by Man Ray. 

“During the thirties, Man Ray made a large number of drawings while in Paris or travelling in the south of France. Man Ray had shown these drawings to Eluard, who had asked him to leave them with him. On Man Ray’s return, some weeks later, he found to his delight that his friend had ‘illustrated’ each drawing with a poem. This new and unexpected proof of Eluard’s esteem resulted in the publication of Les Mains Libres, a book in which more than sixty pen-and-ink drawings are reproduced, fifty-four of them opposite Eluard’s poem” (Penrose, 134).