Haruki Murakami Book covers

Design 1

Design 2

• I am quite set with these two designs. They both have quite different tone of voices. Both are minimal and sleek. The second design however might lack the vibrant colors of the first design, communicating the more quiet and sentimental tone of the book. What draws me into the second design is the texture of the lino print.

• Typography wise, I am leaning towards a more handwritten and organic aesthetic, drawing from the idea of Toru when writes letters to Naoko. 

• I am currently torn between the two designs. Each designs have their own strong elements. Though in terms of a book cover, I am leaning towards the first design, being more surreal and vibrant in color. Something I would like to convey.  

Hustle

I got commissioned by a start up company to design a character for their brand, which would then be applied to their merchandise. 

Overall Thought: projects with quick turnovers, fun but mentally draining. As the process of creating and the duration given is short. I could not give myself time to plan out and thoroughly research.

Roughs I sent over to my client.
Working with color and texture now.

Worked with the monkey character they had
Redesigned it

I was quite skeptical about working with my client because I they never worked with an illustrator before. I am quite happy with the fact that they left most of the creative decisions to me and I had a bit more control over the designs. 

I am however, challenged by the fact that I am working remotely, so communication (through email) is a bit tricky as I could not see if they have looked at the email and responses were quite slow. I would often not get a response within a week  -at times I had to be the one to reach out.

Haruki Murakami again

sketch (will use paper cut out)

lino cut

• This brief took longer than I initially anticipated. I dwelled over the same designs for quite some time. I should instead develop particular designs that I want to make into covers and work with the typography. Some of the designs might work as a cover, with subtle text and emphasizing the illustrations. 

• Though the current question is whether the cover fits the context of the book. This is something I need to weigh in when fitting the illustrations into the given template.

I did a bit of animation wohoo!

brief storyboard

• I had a friend who does animation to collaborate with this project. They worked out the timeline and storyboard, which is very helpful. 

• The visual outcome has yet to be decided and will be worked along the way. Though working around the genre of the music gave more direction to how the animation will look. This would be the open-ended project, where we could be more experimental with the animations. 

Song: Unravel Me - Sabrina Claudio

Process behind the rotoscoping (the background will be the
next step)

What should I make?

I wanted to incorporate people and the society for this book cover since Norwegian Wood talks a lot about relationships and human connection on top of the themes of romance, politics and life. 

The challenge for this particular project is to be able to communicate his tone of voice and but also appeal to the audience. After all this is would become commercial. 

I have never done rotoscoping...

A LOVE LETTER TO THE ONE I MADE UP / מכתב אהבה לבחור שהמצאתי from Rachel Gutgarts on Vimeo.

Thom Yorke - Suspirium 

These are very sophisticated and well-crafted animations. Rachel Gutgarts' animation stood out amongst other rotoscope animations since they used screen print as the main medium. It is a clever way of creating through traditional media, which also suits the concept of their project. For this collaborative project, I have yet to sort out the main concept, story/narrative as well as aesthetic. As I think it plays a significant role in determining the tone and atmosphere of the animation.

Timetable

A time table for the year. I tried to plan it out as realistically as possible, though I spread it out between projects, there are still a few overlapping ones.