ISABELLA ALVARENGA
DIGITAL MEDIA
Book Cover Design:
Heaven Official's Blessing
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1. The book I decided to redesign the cover for is Mo Xiang Tong Xiu’s Danmei-Xianxia novel: Heaven Official’s Blessing, aka 天官赐福 (Tian Guan Ci Fu) . I chose this book as it is one of my favorite series to read, and was one of my very first series to read that got me interested in this genre. I really enjoy reading this book and I am waiting for future parts to be english published!
2. The parts of the plot in this book I used as inspiration for my book cover was the Red string of fate that the deuteragonist's hand on bottom has, and is drawn all over the book then ends up on the protagonist's finger which is the hand closest to the title. It resembles one of many spiritual devices that keep them connected with one another to make sure that they are both safe. The string has a story and a meaning behind it. When the deuteragonist- Hua Cheng was a soldier of Xie Lian's kingdom- XianLe, there was a battle and to protect Hua Cheng, Xie Lian cut off a piece of his own hair and tied it around Hua Cheng's finger. The color scheme of the book was to represent the colors of Hua Cheng and Xie Lian as they are polar opposites, Hua Cheng is red and black while Xie Lian is blue and white.
Adding white peonies on Xie Lian's side as the meaning of them describes his character, although it is not stated what specific flower Xie Lian is seen to be described as to Hua Cheng, people have thought of it as this flower as it looks similar to the flower drawn throughout the series.
The silver butterflies, known as deathly spirit butterflies also represent Hua Cheng's many spiritual devices which keep Xie Lian safe and are one of many symbols that represent this series. Hua Cheng has many of these butterflies that are very useful, whether it be for spying on the realms, healing injuries, or for teleportation. Hua Cheng is seen to be dispersed by them when he is fatally injured at the end of the series, leaving Xie Lian alone and separated from him for a year.
3. Brainstorming was first, as I was struggling to choose between three books but I finally decided to choose Heaven Official’s Blessing as it has more representative objects that can be added to my redesigned book cover. I created a rough draft and my final design was similar to it, but added more elements to my final draft. I started to work on PS, using Gradient backgrounds and working with Gradient fills. Keeping Typography and hierarchy in mind, I chose three fonts carefully and they went surprisingly well with the style of the book vibe/theme. For subtexts, I used a formal font and for headers Starting out with these elements, I started to look for photos that go with my rough draft, that fits it. Thinking about Unity, I chose basic pictures that I edited to fit the book cover rough draft I have created. Using a lot of layer masks helped the elements blend in with the background. I used fx (effects) to enhance Typography (The text) and make the words pop out more.
For the hands, I wanted to blend them in with the background using a low-opacity brush and then using a splatter brush to create the particle effect like the hands are disappearing as the characters are... not mortal and they became immortal at some point, technically becoming ghosts.
To create the white peonies, I just used a background remover and used a layer mask to get rid of any missed spaces and imperfections, As stated in the previous question-answer, it represent's Xie Lian as he was once the Crown Prince, he had love, honor, happiness, wealth, romance, and beauty in his "past" life.
I then created the butterflies, as these represent Hua Cheng. I grabbed simple butterflies from the internet that were free to use and added fx (effects) to add the gray color overlay, outer glow to make the glow effect, bevel and emboss to create that popping effect, inner shadow for shading, and used a splatter blush to create the dispersing effect.
I finalized the summary of the book, and the description of the author's life and career. And then my book cover design is finally finished!
4. The easiest part of creating my cover was figuring out the fonts to use. Keeping in mind the vibe and theme of the book, along with typography and hierarchy, I was able to use three different fonts that correspond to how the series “feel” to me. The fonts match the book cover a lot! The most challenging part of creating my book cover was patching up the elements on the hands that I do not want, as I was having trouble trying to find the right skin colors and shadow colors but it turned out all right for this part. Next time, I would like to find a brush that blends the patched up skin color with the original color to make it look more natural but you can't really see it from a glance.
5. Based on the learning target, "Students will redesign a cover for a famous book that appeals to a modern literacy audience by developing, proposing and refining artistic ideas, plans prototypes and production processes for media arts productions". The level of mastery my project demonstrates is "Exceeds" understanding. I think this because I used many tools in Photoshop to create my design such as Layer masks for editing the backgrounds and parts of many elements, blending options for elements to be balanced with the background of the book cover design, fx tools for lighting and shading of elements, and many brushes for adding other elements such as the red strings and splatter dust effect. I passed " Meets" understanding by using all these tools while thinking about the elements of book cover design which are : "Typography", "Balance", "Emphasis", "Hierarchy", and "Unity".