Welcome to my creative studio! In this post, I'll detail the process of designing the cover for The Jungle Book. You can follow every step from gathering inspiration to choosing the right font until the finished book cover. Let’s take a look behind the scenes and see how The Jungle Book cover was made!
Many people think that artists just get a sheet of paper and their paint set and boom, they've created a masterpiece. Unfortunately, this only happens at the very end of the design process.
To design a unique and eye-catching book cover, I had to base my decisions and break down the workflow into fixed steps. I've already written about the design and the importance of sketching in another blog post, you can reach that here.
Contrary to popular belief, it is the planning that takes the most time. Sketching is the most important thing, but I have to say that it is preceded by one more step, which is to gather inspiration and do some thorough research.
This kind of preparation helps to make the process problem- and stress-free. This was no different with the design of The Jungle Book.
Step zero: let's do some research!
Since I had the time to create this cover as part of the graphic design school, I had the time to read the book before starting designing. This is, of course, not always possible with real life projects.
While reading, contrary to the Disney perception I realised, it is not entirely a book for children. This was an aspect that determined certain steps in the cover design process.
After finishing the book I collected a few key words that revealed the mood and content of the book.
jungle, law of the jungle, india, wolf cub, little frog, man cub, black panther, brown bear, wolves, giant snake, tropical plants, green, adventure novel, lord of the jungle, child protagonist, raised by wolves, wild, law of nature, law of life and death, order in nature, curiosity, exploration, courage, overcoming fear
I gathered some inspiration and then I began with visualising these concepts. I drew all the elements that came to my mind about The Jungle Book.
Sources of inspiration: the power of images
I started with an online search. I've been looking for some children's books to see what their covers look like. Then I thought about how my book could stand out from the crowd. With the help of Google, Behance and Pinterest, I started collecting different inspirational images.
Since cover design is a rather complex task, I collected images on several topics, such as illustration, colour, font or book cover. From these images I tried to filter out recurring elements that were also related to my keywords.
Based on these images I created a moodboard for the book. A moodboard is a visual tool that helps the designer to express the mood and style of a project.
The moodboard is designed to give inspiration and direction to the design process. It can help to define the visual concept you want to achieve. A moodboard usually includes the following elements:
images that express the mood or style you want to convey
a colour palette: the colours the designer wants to use in his or her project
graphic elements, such as fonts: the typography and the style in which the texts are arranged also contribute to the unity of the book cover
textures and other patterns: elements that can be part of the project and reinforce the visual direction of the project.
In addition, a text can be put together to explain the elements on the moodboard.
How sketches can help us develop the concept
After creating the moodboard, I took my sketchbook and started sketching based on the information and images I had gathered. First, I decided on the size and format. Is it a paperback or hardcover book? If hard, does it come with a dust jacket? If soft, can the cover be folded out? How is the binding of the book?
In order to make the most out of my creativity, I never stop at a single sketch. Or even at five or at eight. This time I made 12 sketches for the book.
You can see that I didn't just focus on the illustration, I treated the cover as a whole. Since I was designing a dust jacket for the hardcover book, I sketched all the elements of the cover and tried to capture the dynamics and mood of the concept with a few lines.
These rudimentary sketches give me the impetus to make the most of the design process. If I only drew three sketches, it would be much harder to choose from them, because in three sketches I don't even get close to possible solutions.
Narrowing down the sketches starts at the next stage of the process: I took these 12 little drawings and selected the four best ones. At this point, I decided to focus on the primary cover. So the next step was to work on the main illustration for the cover.
The cover as a unit: more than just an illustration
I never fail to emphasise the concept of unity in the design. We know from marketing that when a potential customer looks at a bookshelf, what are the elements that first catch his or her eye. These aspects must be taken into account in the design, but more importantly, all the elements of the cover must be consistent. The unity of the cover is not a negligible concept.
As I designed the main illustration of the cover with pencil in my sketchbook, the next step was to digitise it. I scanned the four sketches I had chosen and played with them in Photoshop. The main cover is the first thing a customer sees in a shop, so it's the first thing on the list of design priorities.
In the program, I tried using different fonts to add to the author's name and the title of the book. If I'd been working on this project in real life, this would have been the second thing I'd have shown the client after the moodboard. These sketches have been sufficiently put together and elaborated for the outsider to understand what he or she sees.
How to bring the cover to life with illustration
In the next stage, I chose the illustration that best matched the cover. I chose the snake one because I thought it would best capture the mood of the book. I combined the exciting shape of the animal with the jungle plants. Finally, I added a few drops of blood to reflect the fact that this book is not really for children.
At the initial stage of the design, I had several ideas about the technique I would use to create this cover, but I've only now fixed that. I always like to choose the technique to suit the mood of the project. Yes, I have my favourites, but I never say no to experimentation.
Since I was in my collage-phase, I decided to base the illustration on a digital collage, since I hate manual collage with every fiber of my being. Cutting and pasting is not one of my favourite pastimes. I find the technique itself very exciting and always regret that I don't have the patience for it. I was like that up until the point when I realised that if I did everything digitally, I would just get away with the cutting and gluing part.
For me, however, manual techniques take precedence over fully digital. So I took two sheets of paper and painted them with colours. I scanned the sheets, cleaned them up in Photoshop and cut out my snake and jungle from these patches of colour.
Based on the pencil sketch, I fitted the different shapes into place and even added shadows to give the illustration depth. I also played with the colours digitally and had a neon phase, but in the end I had to leave the concept of the disco jungle behind.
Designing the colours and the cover as a whole
I then worked on the finished illustration digitally. In Adobe InDesign, I assembled the base of the cover and started to apply the finished elements. I created additional illustrations based on the style of the snake, which were placed on the rest of the cover.
I left the background white in the first round, so as not to interfere with the font selection and the placement of text and other graphic elements. Once I had the concept and the right hierarchy of texts, I updated the illustration and started the process of choosing the background colour and texture. I also considered leaving the cover white, because somehow this option worked for me, too.
In the end, however, after downloading and pasting eighty thousand textures and colours, I stuck with green.
One last drop of creativity: the finishing touches
Based on the finished concept, I combed over the cover, changing the placement of a few elements, such as moving the jungle plants from the back cover also to the spine, and finally, I declared the cover of The Jungle Book finished.
I started my blog post by highlighting the importance of sketching. However, it is also important to remember not to get too attached to these sketches. Sometimes, at the beginning of the design phase, we think that certain things will work smoothly, but when we actually get to that step, we realise that everything looks stupid.
That's part of the process. If you get stuck, it's worth revisiting the moodboard and the collection of images you gathered at the beginning to see if you can find elements that will help you get through.
You'll see that when designing the colours for the cover, I first designed a pale yellowish homogeneous background. However, in the final stages of the design, I realised that I needed something extra that I hadn't thought of when sketching. How about adding some texture and fading the background colour? So I came up with this pale green-based cover, combined with a grainy texture.
Creative partnership: the value of customer feedback
This project was unfortunately not a real-life-one, as I wasn't working with a publisher, so there has been little talk of client communication in this blogpost.
However, this is not exactly a negligible aspect, as the client has a huge say in the design process. Consultations at appropriate intervals help to avoid any misunderstandings. By fully involving the client at the beginning of the design process, we can save ourselves a lot of aggravation. No one likes to start the whole project from scratch at the last step.
However, it is important to stress that we illustrators are not the client's hands. We are partners in the project, and the knowledge of the client and the illustrator can complement each other.
Continuous feedback throughout the design process and the accurate definition of the brief before the design begins will help to ensure that the project is executed with the highest quality and care from both perspectives.
Finally, here you can see the finished cover:
I hope I've lifted the veil on how an illustrator works and what exactly goes on behind the scenes during the design process.
You can follow me on social media:
Commentaires