Final piece

I started off by copying my draft on two pieces of A4 paper stuck together. I also experimented a bit by using my 'Twiggy type' on the branches but I thought that it was too much so decided to stick to the original.

After copying my draft, I decided to make some adjustments and add things to my design.

I thought that my front cover looked quite bare so I added some drawings of dragonflies to have as a focal point.

I then added some bulrushes to the front, back and flaps of my design. I also drew some more clouds onto my flaps to add repetition to my book cover.

After I was happy with my drawing, I scanned it into photoshop. I then flipped the image so it would print out backwards, my reason for doing this was so when I cut it out and flipped it over, you wouldn't be able to see any of my drawing marks which would make my work look untidy. After doing that, adjusted the threshold so the drawing was just black and white.

I then started to cut my drawing out.

From experience of cutting for my copy and emulation I made sure that my design wasn't as delicate as my copy so I wouldn't find it too difficult to cut and accidentally tear pieces.

The hardest part to cut was the bulrushes but I made sure I was careful and didn't tear anything accidentally.

I also took great care with the lettering as that was what I found most difficult when I cut my copy, because I'd designed the text to be quite on my design it wasn't too difficult.

Here is an image of the clouds and the bulrushes that I added to the flaps of my book cover.

Here is what my design looked like after I had finished cutting. I then placed it on top of black card and scanned it into Photoshop.

I adjusted the threshold so it was simply just black and white and then I deleted the black background.

As I had to scan the front and back separately, I put them together as they would be if it was a real book cover and added a light green background.

I wanted to make the effect that the white part of my design was lifted of the page so added a drop shadow.

I then started to add text to my design.

This is the point I got to when I decided I needed to make some adjustments.

I printed my book cover off and highlighted all the points I needed to change, I then made these adjustments on my design on Photoshop.

I added a dropped cap to the text on the blurb, this gave my text more contrast and made it look more interesting.

Using the pen tool, I then made the text on the front flap fit in with the shape of the design, this made it look better than just being a rectangular shape.

I moved the institutional information from the back flap to the back cover as I felt it was out of place on the flap and looked a lot better on the back cover.

I also added a 5px white stroke around the image of Kenneth Grahame to make the picture stand out more and to add contrast between the dark photograph.

I added the authors name to the front of my cover as I felt it was important to have his name somewhere on the front.

I also added an endorsement as I felt it was lacking information on the back cover and so many book covers include an endorsement. I then changed the opacity to 40% as it looked too bold at 100% (which was black).

I thought that the spine spine looked really bad and cluttered so I also made an alteration to this.

I changed the size of the text so it was a lot smaller and fit well with the design. I also made the title of the book and the authors name a lot more contrasting in size.

Here is my final piece: