Week 13 - Personal Branding

My Logo

This week I searched through my large font collection to find a name that suits me. I ended out settling on using my initials for my logo as my name is too long, and I thought that the font I chose suited me.

The font is to appear on my business cards and websites, and although I have found the font I believe that I should do a very simple illustration to go with it to suit my personality.

My Business Cards

I wanted to design Business cards to show my Illustrative side my colourful personality.

Week 12 - Puffin Project Hand in

What I am going to Submit

Here are my completed final covers, along with how they would look on the books. This week I also did my self branding and work on my website! I am happy with the final outcomes, in the next week I will be doing a box for point of sell, as well as some promotional work for my covers.

 What I think of my final Project


After completing the project I have gotten lots of positive feedback, I have become more confident. I didn't win the competition, perhaps because it is not weird enough as the winners are all hand crafted.

When I started the Little White Lies project we were told by some tutors not to hand craft things that can be done on Photoshop, and that is what we did. I believe that this information was very wrong and although I am happy with my piece, we should not have listened and I am quite disappointed to have heard this. I have discovered that all of the winners of the Little White Lies and the Puffin briefs have all been hand crafted, or sewn and it was this character that made them special.

I am still happy with my project and but I am sure that if I had not heard this my project would have turned out quite differently, not necessarily for the better. I had the right encouragement from my tutor and I have made something that I am proud of.

Week 11 - Finished Piece and Extended brief

Competition Deadline - 19th April


This week I had to make a change to the cover design for submission. The two images that I had done were both equally as detailed and very strong, so I had to simplify the back. I didn't think that the blue color went too well with the front so I changed them to a mutual colour. I developed the back so that it still ties in well with the front, but there is less detail so that it doesn't come away from the text.

I played with the text for a couple of days and am very satisfied with the result, I am happy that this project enabled me to work more with Typography, and with the proposed extension on the brief I will work with it more.

Finally I illustrated the the spine to bring the whole cover together.

What did I learn from this project so far?

I have developed my skills in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, as well as my typographic skills. My time keeping has greatly improved as I comfortably met all of my deadlines. 

Week 10 - Final Illustration

What I did this week

This week I got my final cover design started and almost completed. I will work on the type next week, but this week I am really excited about my final Illustration as it is coming together very nicely. I divided each layer up between Illustrator and Photoshop and the effects are exactly what I wanted. This project so far has give me so much more confidence in my Illustration abilities and my time keeping. I will see how the next week goes, I am hoping to have it completely finished by next Wednesday. Furthermore, I have decided to expand this project further as I have done much more Illustrations then needed.

Further Developments in my Design

I came to a little dilemma this week in my cover design, I had the blue back and the orange front but I could not make them work, the back was too detailed for the text. I have developed my design even further and have decided to make 2 books. As it is Puffin's 200th Anniversary I am going to do a 200th Anniversary edition. I know that the book that I have just done for the competition is only some of the Grimm Fairy tales so I have decided to do a second book, for the creepier tales for the more mature children. The books will match and come in a box set, along with a few other treats. I will have more details on this plan once the competition has been entered.

Week 9 - Progress

This week I got the outline for my forests done on Illustrator, ready to add colour/texture and characters to. There is not really much personal improvement to report other then the fact that I am still on time and I have experimented and improved my adobe skills!

Week 8 - Progress

This week I have started plotting out my design on a digital format. I have tweaked last weeks idea so it suits the layout of the book cover, and I have started the final piece. The below designs are quick and terrible but at least I now have the confidence to show my less attractive pieces in the process!!

Week 7 - Progress

This week, I came up with quite a few different designs for the cover and had plenty more ideas in my head, but decided to pick one and go with it. I have learned that there is no point thinking of 20 good ideas on such a broad subject, when I should choose one good one and run with it. There are just too many possible outcomes for such a project.

I drew up some rough sketches, then planned out a style for some of the aspects of the design like the trees and Rapunzles castle.

A layout has definitely been decided, choosing 2 strong graphic images for the front and back cover. This will keep the book modern, as written in the brief.

What I need to do next


Next I have to draw up the final layout on photoshop and illustrator.

Design the characters to be hidden in the woods.

Experiment with different styles and textures on my design.