The last year and a half has been a constant churning of life’s ocean waves when set on a giant spin cycle. Between COVID and finishing up my master’s degree, I barely have an internal clock or a solid sense of time (as if I had one in the first place). But now things are finally getting back to normal (well, as normal as post-graduation adult life can get), and therefore it’s probably worth giving a life update.
Cover Design for “The Kingdom Heir”
I was able to design this cover for Lana Howell’s debut novel, The Kingdom Heir, published by Xulon Press.
Cover and Layout Design for “A Writer’s Wilderness”
Ever want to read a western…but with dragons? Kylee Kosoff just graduated with her degree in professional writing and published an anthology of her work (and yes, there be dragons in the west).
End-Semester Book Cover Redesigns
This is the second half of my semester redesigns. For our Conceptual Communications class we had to create weekly artwork based on a prompt. I decided to redesign well-known book covers based on each. Below are each of the three covers with their original photo references that I used to combine into a single image. One of my goals for these projects is to create a professional book cover using entirely free resources from Pixabay, Dafont, and other online sites (with the obvious exception of Adobe, which sadly isn’t free). Below you can see each photo I used in each cover, and you can find every resource free online.
Mockup Cover Designs for RED Trilogy
Eighteen-year-old River Ardis lives in a future where terrorists infiltrate the country as teenagers. She tries her best to keep her head down and away from the unrest until she meets a distraught girl from the 1990s. But little do either of them know, the oppressive government has been hunting the time traveler for years—and anyone associated with her. I began writing my time travel dystopian trilogy when I was fourteen, and it’s since undergone extensive edits for the past ten years. While I intend to pursue a traditional publishing house, which would be responsible for cover designs, I wanted to design my own cover and layout for a class project.
The Genres of Red Riding Hood
For my graduate Conceptual Communication class, I had to do a project that would depict the idea of “compare and contrast.” I decided to do a genre study and create a set of book covers that showed the classic story of Red Riding Hood in six of the biggest genres on the market.
Mid-Semester Book Cover Redesigns
For our Conceptual Communications class we had to create weekly artwork based on a prompt. I decided to redesign well-known book covers based on each. Below are each of the three covers with their original photo references that I used to combine into a single image. One of my goals for these projects is to create a professional book cover using entirely free resources from Pixabay, Dafont, and other online sites (with the obvious exception of Adobe, which sadly isn’t free). Below you can see each photo I used in each cover, and you can find every resource free online.
Library Fantasy Posters
I wanted to create a series of posters one might find in a local library for the prompt “cause and effect.” Essentially, if you read amazing books, you travel to amazing places. I chose to illustrate three classic fantasy worlds in the form of travel posters: Neverland, Middle Earth, and Narnia. In addition, I wanted all three of them to be able to hang next to each other to create a continuous scene, with Aslan leading the way “further up and further in.” I also added a comet in the sky of the Neverland poster as a reference to the Disney prequel series I read as a kid.
Magic of the Real Kinetic Type Video
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVkyWKQu5F0&w=560&h=315] Last summer I was able to attend the Realm Makers virtual conference, where author ND Wilson was the opening keynote speaker. His perspective on the fantasy genre and the Christian author’s role was game-changing to me, and it really left me with a new perspective on God’s creation and fantastic storytelling throughout history. Wilson believes that we live in “God’s fantasy novel,” in that, God’s creation and history is fantastic, and is the origin for all fantasy fiction (Marvel comics inspired by the Book of Judges, for example). In the original keynote, Wilson echoed some of JRR Tolkien’s and CS Lewis’s beliefs on the fantasy genre, and charged his audience to live in God’s novel as a character they would want to read about. Since a lot of his points stuck with me and other conference attendees, I wanted to adapt his talk into a short video that explained his view on fantasy, informing them of a new and unique way to see God and storytelling.
Loaves and Fishes Sign Design
For my final project in my 3D design class, I had to create a sign for a business (real or fictional) and use simple materials like foam and insulation board to mimic authentic materials like wood and metal. I wanted to make a biblical themed restaurant that one would expect to see in a faith-based amusement park, and thought “Loaves and Fishes” could be a clever name for a meal stop. It was also a tribute to the new biblical tv show, The Chosen, produced by Dallas Jenkins, which I had been thoroughly invested in during the semester. I based the original typeface closely after the Orlando Holy Land Experience logo, combined with elements from free Arabic fonts online. The sign was made primarily of pink, half-inch insulation board cut and painted to look like a cartoonish piece of wood to fit the amusement park vibes I was going for. Check out this tutorial I followed to get the same effect. The letters were also insulation board cut with a laser cutter and spray-painted with textured bleached stone paint. I thought it looked slightly like bread (to help with the name, Loaves and Fishes). The fish and paint colors were … Read More
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