Tall Tales & Falsehoods

While some say that traditional book printing is fading out other feel as if there will always be a need for print. Whatever the case may be there will always be “The Classics,” books we hold dear to our heart and have withstood the test of time as great example of literature.

Book jacket design may be called something else in the near future but the principals of design remain the same.

• Identify the main elements in the story
• Communicate the overall theme or mood of the work
• Entice the reader

Choose one of the following novels (hopefully you have read a least one of them) and redesign the book jacket. You may want to purchase a hard bound book to use for the actually jacket to fit for your portfolio. Please include author notes and story description, barcode and publisher information within your design.

Book jacket design tends to reinvent itself ever few years so I expect you to do the same.

1. Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451″
2. Aldous Huxley, “Brave New World”
3. George Orwell, “Animal Farm”
4. J.D. Salinger, “The Catcher In The Rye”
5. F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Great Gatsby”
6. Jon Krakuer, “Into The Wild”
7. John Steinbeck, “The Grapes Of Wrath”
8. George Orwell, “1984″
9. William Golding, “Lord Of The Flies”

In today’s graphic world is fun to watch a trends develop, rise to a certain status and slowly die out. Right now a small design trend seems to be vintage minimalism.

http://www.taviscoburn.com/

http://www.2046design.com/

http://simoncpage.co.uk/blog/

http://www.exergian.com/

Assignment:

Choose one of the following movies and develop a movie poster based on the principals of vintage minimalism.

1. American Beauty
2. Indiana Jones & The Temple Of Doom
3. Monsters INC.
4. Anchor Man
5. Die Hard

Size: 24×36

Due Date: March 9, 2010

File Type: PDF

Grade: You will be graded on your idea (75%) and your execution (25%).

Key Points:

• Things To Remember
• Take it one step further

Things to Remember:

• Make it right! Identify your goals
• Case Studies
• Organize it better
• Work the community
• Provide adequate contact information, documentation and explanations
• Let your personality shine

Take It One Step Further:

• Blogs
• FaceBook
• Twitter
• Comments
• Community – Flickr etc.

On-line Portfolio Resources:

• Carbon Made – http://www.carbonmade.com
• Flickr – http://www.flickr.com/
• Deviant Art -  http://www.deviantart.com/
• Word Press – http://wordpress.com/

Examples:

• http://www.leoburnett.com/
• http://alexarts.ru/en/index.html
• http://www.loukotka.com/
• http://danjoedesign.com/index.html
• http://www.thefivemilegrace.com/photoblog/

Wow, It has been a year since the birth of my child – Memphis Addison Pope. Over that time I have learned a lot about her and hopefully she has learned some about me. I know at this stage in her life I hold major influence over her; her likes and dislikes, her taste in music and art and even her eating habits. I am trying to make the best of it by showing here some of the the things that have influenced me over the years and that may (or may not) influence her.

My wife asked  me to design an invitation for her first birthday party and while I normally turned down these opportunities I deiced to go for it. I have a hard time designing for myself. There are too many options, too many possibilities that I can do which makes it hard for me to settle on just one idea. All I knew for this is that I didn’t want to go the traditional princess route. I know her mind will be warped soon enough so I wanted to go in a different direction.

Memphis Pope First Birthday Invitation

As you can see I pulled the reference from the great Sun Records logo and built the invitation around that. It is a gate fold in the center of the 45 and opens up to a traditional “faux” letterpress poster. I would have loved to actually had it letter pressed by Hatch Show prints our of Nashville or Yee Haw Industries out of Knoxville. Maybe another time.

Memphis Addison Pope I love you and hope you are not to mad at me for trying to raise you to like some of the things that I think are cool. I know soon enough that you will want to have a princess theme birtday party but for now how about some Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, and Jerry Lee Lewis?