Now that Unsaid Undone, Flax017 has been published, I thought it might be fun to have a quick look back at some of the cover ideas Sarah, Jonathan and I discussed as we worked on producing this, our most recent digital publication.
The process generally goes that I show a couple of ideas to Sarah. We argue a bit, I justify why I have proposed the images. We show it to Jonathan, he adds his two penneth worth and we start eliminating. So here are my first suggestions:
But, before I did that, I tried this:
I think perhaps I was being a bit two minimalist.
Sarah was keen on both of the first drafts I showed her, but was wary of the image, which she felt was a bit too despairing. So I moved on to try other images, including:
I searched and searched until I found a rather lovely image that reminded me of an early Smiths cover. And then after lots of manipulation, we came up with this:
And the downcast, but not gloomy, mood, Sarah thought, fit perfectly. So I then got down to the work of creating the other pages and building the book.
About the method:
The stencil effect is quite easy in theory. You simply reduce the image to black and white, push the black so there is no grey, then mask off all the white and spray it (this is in photoshop, of course, though I did consider hand cutting stencils until I thought carefully about how long that would take.) The challenge is to a) ensure all the “brushes” you use are the same and b) get that slightly blurred and textured feel. This challenge was further complicated by the fact that the programs I use at home and at Litfest vary ever so slightly.
You can, of course, view the final product on the Unsaid Undone, Flax018 page.
Martin
the designer
Litfest
