But I know that I want them to look different. More eye-appeal. More mature. More of something that would draw you in to look closer if it were on a shelf in a store.
So, I've playing with a million different photos and fonts and placements and hacking my way through designing my own cover.
I opted to design my own cover for a number of reasons. One of the main ones was because I knew a rough idea of how I wanted it to look, and I knew that I would have a hard time explaining it to someone else using words like relaxing, but with doodles, and with coffee, and lots of clean white. So that leaves me to hack and do it totally unprofessionally and hope for the best. Here's my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants process.
Hack #1: All pictures must be taken outside. Inside has poor lighting and I always get blue tint. I know I can correct it on the photo program, but it looks corrected. So outside it is. With a white foam board from the dollar tree and all my "props"--pens, Bible journal, Bible and coffee cup--hoping to get a few pics done between clouds and rain.
Hack #2: The coffee is too shiny and reflecting weird overhead tree branches and too flat. I try to whisk it up to get bubbles but just get a few unpromising bubbles that pop right away. So I grab a canning jar and lid and shake it like crazy and slosh it into the cup and then realize there's too many bubbles and you can't see the coffee. I have to stick my finger in and pop a bunch which means I drip on the white foam board I was using as background and it instantly absorbs and stains it. I now need one additional prop to cover that, an eraser.
Hack #5: That's close but it still has a few dark corners and edges, so I add it as a layer to a new design and use the cool and handy eraser and just erase those parts to blend and fade.
Hack #6: The fonts are tricky. I found from some early test cover layouts that I can only use two fonts on a cover. Any more and it is overwhelming and no one likes it. And, I knew I wanted a doodle font and a print font. I couldn't find a good doodle font I liked, so I went with one I drew and scanned myself.
After a BUNCH (and I mean A. BUNCH. Days and weeks and more weeks of work!) of layers and tweaks and moving things around, I think I finally have it done...
Right now I'm reworking the layout on the inside pages to make it easy to follow hopefully fun and clear. I'm planning on it going live mid-May! Can't wait!
You can see all the current studies here.
Though the cover is different, the inside still has all the amazing doodle and journal fun these are known for!
That's a lot of work - but it looks beautiful. I'm excited to try your new study soon!
ReplyDeletelove all the tips, I've always wondered how the great blog pictures are taken. Can't wait to start the new study
ReplyDelete