Haroun's adventures ...

So this is the last of this semester's projects. We had to design two book-covers and we were allowed to choose whatever book we wanted (as long as we cleared it with the tutor first). I went with one of my favourite books - Salman Rushdie's "Haroun and the Sea of Stories".

I wanted it quite tactile - for a while thinking that I'd make a set, then photograph it .... but that was just too much work considering how many other projects I had on. Instead I started playing with lots of cellophane sheets.

The first cover I did is quite colourful (refers to the streams in the 'Sea of Stories'):


I laid out lots of coloured strips that I'd cut, straight onto the scanner and scanned them in. I also tried adding several fish and water splashes etc until I found something that worked. It was all then composited in Photoshop and printed onto acetate (to give that translucent feel the original bits of cellophane had). Here's a photo of what the original strips looked like:


And examples of the scans are here.

The second cover is the last thing I did on Tuesday night before rushing to college to drop it all off. Part of the story refers to the people of the land of Chup - where their shadows are attached, but independent of them. Haroun comes across a warrior practise-fighting with his own shadow!

I made this up using more black and blue cellophane, photographed it and tried to composite it into a book cover in Photoshop. Somehow it just didn't work .... I tried all manor of iterations and it just wasn't coming together. Eventually I decided to go back to what I do best - hand made ... and so this is what I did ...


On a funny note, I did this, handed it in Tuesday night, and look what Rob Ryan put up on Wednesday on his blog.

Anyways, this is it for this semesters work ... I've got some time off now to do my OWN stuff (includng wedding planning!). I'm off to a zinefest tomorrow in London, and then visiting my Grandma ... will be back with further adventures soon!