Project Four: Book Cover

For the book cover project, I'll be doing Dracula.  I have to say, I'm surprised no one jumped on this one before me!
This book has been around so long, and is so ingrained in pop culture, I'm a bit unsure if that will make it easier or harder on me.  On the one hand, there's a lot out there to inspire me.  On the other hand, the pop culture image of Dracula is not the same as the actual character in the book.  I love the original novel and I'm aware of those differences, but I still want to watch myself to make sure I don't start using stuff that's from the plays, movies, TV adaptations, etc.  Here's a few book covers from over the ages that I found:

Quite a variety!  And these are only a few of the many I found just from a quick Google search.

So, what should my approach be?  Even though Dracula is considered the star of the show, most of the protagonists are iconic themselves, particularly Van Helsing and Lucy.  (But Mina Harker was always my favorite!)  I'd like to figure out some way to feature our heroes, if not as prominently.
I'm still iffy on the issue of whether to do a more representational or symbolic cover.  Like, illustrate a great scene/character, or build some sort of design that has symbols from the book.  I'm leaning towards the latter...
Thoughts?

Poster Critique Version and Updated Version

So, here is the version of my poster I presented for critique:

And here's a little update where I got rid of that box and played a little with the size and out lines of the font:

I do like this updated version better.  I wish I'd thought of it before I printed!

Poster Progress

Here's what I have so far:

It's still really rough, but I like the direction I'm going in.  What really worries me is how much trouble I'm still having with Photoshop.  Just getting this done took me way too long.

My Review

I know this is unrelated to class, but I got a short review published at Burnaway magazine through my internship.  I've never gotten to do something like this before, and I'm pretty happy about it.  It's here if you want to read it.

Poster Project Update

So, I think I've got a pretty solid idea of what I want to do.  I was playing with this design, and this is sort of the basic color scheme I'm going with.

 Except I plan for the finished product to have a black background, try to make those colors glow (does anyone have good advice on how to accomplish that, by the way?)

This is the more cleaned-up design that I've chosen.  I'm going to trace this sketch more neatly in Photoshop and work from there.
Comments?  Advice?

Poster Project Ideas

Okay, new project!  I've only come up with a few events and sales I might do, and so far I'm not sure about any of them:

• Garden Lights Holiday Nights at Atlanta Botanical Gardens
• Go West! Exhibition at the High Museum
• The upcoming How to Train Your Dragon sequel (this one probably isn't a great idea, since it's pretty far off and not a lot of material has been released).
• The Hyperbole and a Half book

So what do you think?

Edit: Decision made.  I'm doing Garden Lights!

Close to Finished?

I think I've almost got these ads as good as I can make them:

3 x 10.5

5 x 5

8 x 10

Thoughts?

Changing the Plan (for the better)

   Despite my disappointing progress so far, I think I've had a bit of an epiphany on how to improve.  I hadn't decided to do this, but I've been trying to take these different elements and fit them together to build a seamless new picture.  Considering what I'm trying to go for, letting my image actually look like a collage might be the best direction to go in.  So I'm going to just pick patterns that work well with certain teas and cut them into shapes and lines that I can use to build a picture.
   I still don't know which tagline to pick, but "Experience the world with Teavana" seemed to pop more than the others, so I'm going to go with something along those lines.
   I also like the idea that was suggested to me about putting maps of where the teas are from in the background.  So, a lot of crunch work ahead!

Ad "Progress"

   I am terrible with Photoshop!
   I'm not giving up or anything, but all the trouble I've been having just getting the basics down is a bit discouraging.  So far, this is all I've got to show for myself:

   Still, better than nothing, right?  ...riiiight?
   Well, in my defense, I had quite a lot of other work I had to finish right away, and once that was done it was either try to fix this thing I'm not even sure I'll stick with or try to get three hours of sleep.  I stand by my decision.
   I do think I understand what to do better now, and thankfully I've still got the weekend to work.  I think I should play with my composition ideas again if I want this to look good.

Project Two Step Four

In my research on Teavana, I've had some trouble finding ads besides the ones that occasionally come up on my banners after looking them up on the Internet myself.  That makes sense, in retrospect, as I even found an article on the company stating that their business strategy relies on "virtually no advertising," instead focusing on tea culture, mall foot traffic, and word of mouth.  Well, it does seem to be working for them.
So, I decided instead to pick some images from their site as examples of their advertising.

I like their style: clean, crisp, and colorful, everything looks beautiful and tasty.  Still, you're not likely to see it unless you know about them already.  I don't like to be swamped with ads any more than the next person, but I believe they would benefit from more exposure.
I get a similar feeling watching the videos on their YouTube channel: the people they have to speak seem to know their stuff and some viewers love the real-person appeal, but for that same reason they can come off looking a bit unprofessional compared to ads with actors and professional speakers.

Since Teavana doesn't have their own tagline, I've been playing around with some that I hope will be good:

• Tea can transport you.
• Tea can take you there.
• Travel the world in a cup.
• Entire worlds in one cup.
• An entire world in a cup.
• Drink in the world.
• Experience the world with Teavana.
• Tastes of the world from Teavana.

What do you think?

Advertisement Project Progress

Step Three: Unfortunately, Teavana's logo isn't on Brands of the World, but this image from their home site should be ok.

I'm finding a lot of images I think would work well for my theme, now it's a matter of designing the composition and narrowing down to just what I need.