You
Utilize the Different Tools in Your Toolbox
Books are a great way to paint your own picture with the author's words, so redeisging a book jacket was a fun way to bring life to my interpretation of the story.
You is a very dark tale, also about interpretations. I wanted to illustrate feelings of paranoia, entrapment & different perspectives. I knew I wanted the illustration or picture to span the length of the jacket & fit the foreground elements within the elements of the artwork. At first I thought that I wanted to illustrate some sort of moody & clever negative-space drawing, but at the time I couldn't shake loose the right ideas, let alone get them onto paper. I wanted the mood to be chilling, & everything I was sketching felt a little too silly to be taken as seriously as I wanted, so I had to switch gears somehow..
I then decided to bring the artwork into Photoshop & use realistic imagery to convey the emotions that my drawings couldn't at the time. Sometimes it is easier to conjure up something from complete scratch through drawing, but I asked myself; could I do this with other tools? All it took was photos of just the right creepy face and dusty old bookshelf, then with a little bit of Photoshop magic I was able to bring a new idea to life.
Project Overview
You takes place in New York City, and as you read the book you find that it is more difficult than you think to stay private & hidden amongst millions of other city-dwellers. Through the mood board I thought about the setting, tone & the feelings I wanted to illicit in the viewer.
Sketches
I first tried out iterations of simple, striking imagery that evoked feelings of being trapped, of feelings of hiding behind or amongst things. I felt a lot of frustration in this stage before deciding to take a photographic approach.
Drafts
Once I found the right images, I was excited to compose my artwork through Photoshop instead of drawing by hand. I used a lot of layering techniques to hide my character behind books, not unlike the main character himself. Through AI I also expanded the bookcase to span the length of the jacket, then used lots of layers at varying opacities to create a moody vignette.
Final Design
After some tweaking of the typefaces and composition, the result is a foreboding setting where you may or may not notice the man watching you at first. The artwork is successful in eliciting an uneasy feeling, and the moodiness allows for a foundation dark enough to let all the important text & elements of the book jacket shine.
