Romance Book Cover
For this part of the project, I chose to create a romance book cover with a watercolor background, incorporating various bitmap images and tools. I used Gimp to accomplish my vision.I began by uploading the background and minimizing the opacity. After adding the two silhouette layers, I inverted them to remove the white background and resized both silhouettes to ensure they were equal in size. I then added a watercolor envelope as a new layer and used the scissor tool to eliminate the white background, cleaning up the edges with the eraser tool.To create a sense of flow, I used the Sparks brush to connect the silhouettes and envelope, then added a supernova filter between them. This design choice symbolizes an invisible string connecting the characters, reflecting their ties to each other in their hometown and through the exchange of letters. I added the title text and adjusted it to a bold, italicized font. Then, I added a new textbox below for my name as the author, selecting a simple text and color that fit the background.Lastly, I adjusted the background saturation and color temperature, as the original was very bright and saturated.
Podcast Logo
Using Photoshop, I created a logo for a podcast that features imagery evoking the feeling of sitting around a campfire, telling stories. I wanted to design a simple logo of a fire pit. I started by simply creating a circle, adding a gradient as the fill color, and then reforming the points until it resembled a teardrop shape. I converted it to a smart shape and used the blending options to add dimensions such as a drop shadow underneath, satin structure, inner glow, and a smooth outer bevel with yellow coloring. Using the brush tool, I added a light glow around the fire and then used the liquify tool to enhance the shape of the fire and flames. Moving on to the logs, I began by creating rectangles, coloring them brown, and rotating them to fit underneath the fire image. These were also converted to smart objects, and I utilized blending options again including drop shadows and satin linear burn. From there, I used the liquify tool to modify the shape of the logs, so they were not straight lines. To add more dimension, I then used a brush tool in a small, light color to add lines to the logs, with the intention of creating a woodgrain effect. Lastly, I added the text and used the blending options to enhance the look, including outer glow, drop shadow, and outer bevel stroke. Then, I used the warp text in a rise style to give it some movement.
