by Eugénie Besson
Media Studies Blog
Preliminary task : Book cover
I decided that the book's genre would be a memoir, from the mysterious life of the author.
I wanted something personal that enter in the intimacy of someone and I my opinion a memoir is the best way. It tell us the personal knowledge and experiences of the person.
Moreover I wanted her memoir to be mysterious and even tragic.
By having this in mind it helps to build the cover of the book.
Photoshoot
I wanted a picture of the author , who is a women ,with a serious expression while looking at the camera to create an effect of eyes contact : making the audience understand that the main topic focus on the person represented.
I wanted my model to look as natural as possible , to point up the transparency of her story and to make her private life more credible whiteout any superficial elements.
It is why she doesn't have any make-up , her hair is messy and she wears a dressing gown or a simple grey top.
The background is dark to make her stand in front,without details behind and the colors are desaturated
The use of only one key light which create shadow parts on her face accentuate her dignified expression and emphasize the mystery theme of the book.
Edited pictures
I have also planned a target audience I wanted to reach.
As the book is a sensitive topic about a women , most of ladies will be attracted to it.
The minimum age would be 16 years old as the title shows it , the book contains complicated words.
Book Title
Having in mind the characteristics of my book, I wanted the title to be only one word and more particularly a non common one, to accentuate the level of English vocabulary and the mystery theme.
"Orphic" is the perfect adjective I found to describe the memoir. It means mysterious and entrancing, beyond ordinary understanding.
Furthermore, even if the definition of "orphic" isn't know, its pronunciation is similar to "horrific" "catastrophic" "metamorphic" which give the similar atmosphere I want to transmit from the cover.
Design
The torn paper effect really attracted me.
It give a feeling of caught, even of something tragic as it the destruction of paper. It exactly transmit what I want my audience to feel when looking at the cover
When it came to choosing the main image, it was really not complicate for me. After I have finish editing my selection of pictures, this one seemed evident.
Her facial expression correspond to my criteria, the light contrast emphasize the mysterious theme, and the appearance of the dressing rob minimize the harshness of the picture by highlighting femininity, and affirm her intimacy.
I only slightly desaturated the colors, and accentuated the contrast.
I decided to diminish as much as I can the size of the text, and moreover
only the term "a memoir" (which indicates the book's type), the name of the author (invented by me) and the title is appearing.
This create a refined designed and accentuated the effect created by the torn paper I wanted to reach.
I didn't use any template to create the torn effect, but by the applications of tools in Photoshop.
Final Result
