In this project I am to design a book cover for Oliver Sacks's Musicophilia. My design of the book must include a Chimera. The Chimera must include type and musical symbols.
Final Piece
This is the one ill be putting through as my finished piece for the project. Simplicity is the concept here, less is more I thought which is why i created this sphere with a with a brain inside and the circle of fifths overleyed on it. I'm really happy with the way this cover turned out. The Heading I made after watching this tutorial: http://abduzeedo.com/easy-casino-style-sign-photoshop on abduzeedo. It ticks all the required box I decided were necessary: simple, slick, contained, sophisticated, modern and maybe slightly more interesting than other of his covers.
Process
Sphere Process
This is the how I made the sphere surrounding the brain. Step 1: create a new psd document, make it 4x4 inces and 300 resolution, make the background black, then choose filter/render/lens flare/ 105mm. Step 2:Next choose filter/distort/polar coordinants/ polar to rectanglular. Step 3: Image rotation-180. Step 4: filter/ distort/ polar coordinants/ Rectangular to polar. Step 5: Make a cirle selection/new layer/filter/render/clouds. Step 6: filter/distort/twist. Step 7: filter/distort spherize-100%. Step 8: Apply the filters in step 6 and 7 to first layer/ invert selection and cut.
Type Process
Here is a step by step process of my Type. All effects were applied in Photoshop and an image of a light buld was used and duplicated with various effects.
Background Image Process
This is the image I use to create the textured background. I created this image for a previous project for Ideas Geneeration class. This image was created by combining felt of a christmass sock, the concrete exterior of my house and scanned in paint splashes mix together with various blend modes and effects in Photoshop.
First Chimera Book Cover Idea
This was the first cover I designed. The concept for this came from the story of the man who gets struck by lightening (conveyed by the sound wave and the colour of the character) and the storys of sinesthesia (conveyed by the colour streaming from the chimera's mind). It's ok (ish) in my opinion. It is a bit too loud, uncoordinated, sci fi and unsophisticated as a whole, which is why I was not too happy with it. I spent way too much time designing this cover, it just never seemed to work but I do like the individual elements on their own.
Oliver Sacks Other Book Covers
All of his other books share similar qualities, simple, clean, sophisticated (most of the time). Something to keep i mind when design my cover. They seemed to be for the intelligentsia of society, so i'll try keep the loud and flashy to a minimum.
Inspiring and Relative Image Research
I used this image in one of my early protoypes
same as this one
Intersting image, could definitely do something like this.
I could use this idea using musical related words as well as musical symbols.
Cool image, could use for a mouth or other effects.
I love this image, interesting looking lye with a face, I could use this idea with another image, also this reminds me that I don't have to create a living character chimera I could also design an inanimate chimera.
This could be a useful concept when designing my chimera.
Really cool abstract image, the colours really work in this and as well as relating to the concept of the book.
Even though this has a slap dash look to it it still works quite well.
Sketchs
Research
The book Musicophilia is a Oliver Sacks's psychological exploration of the effects of music on the human mind. Oliver talks about his own personal experience with music as a Neuro Psychologist, his patients experiences and tons of research he's accumulated over his career.
Iv'e only read a few small stories from the book its self as well as overviews and reviews and I have found them to be facinating, fun and full of quirky human emotion.
Book Covers
These are the only two covers I found of Musicaphilia, they are both fairly conservative and boring in my opinion considering the colourful and interesting stories inside.
