Book Jacket V2.0

 

 

Upon the recommendation, I went back in and started to find a way to tone down the original version of my book jacket (the harsh orange and yellow background) and made the book title easier to read (previous version was arched to the radius of the earth and instruments). I actually like the green color better because it is more comforting to the eye than in the original jacket cover.

This is my book jacket design for a group called The World Saxophone Quartet. I first discovered this group when I started listening to NPR radio several years ago and since I have an affinity to the saxophone from high school when I played both in concert and stage band, it was like trying to deny a moth to a flame.

There must be some 22 layers in total and many of them have various edited effects using as many Photoshop tools as I could. Anything from transparency adjustments, changing orientation of images, text, gradient background and 3D text. I could have added more, but the real estate for the book cover was getting thin.

Here is a link to video of the group if your interested in hearing the type of jazz music they play.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ccRGordsKec

M4 Sketch A & B: World Saxophone Quartet

I chose to produce a book cover for a favorite saxophone group of mine, as named. I can't make up my mind as to what color scheme to use for the cover, but in my head I hear the music clearly and I keep tapping my foot the upbeat notes in the tune. That could be a good thing for inspiration, but that will be proved in the finished project.

Here is a link to one of their signature pieces of music, in case your are interested. "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyaPO87woGE"

Upon advice, final edit of my Alternative Energy poster...

I chose the message of the world’s voracious fossil fuel consumption and the resultant pollution and particulates that are crowding our life sustaining environment. There is a finite end to the fossil fuel resources and it is estimated that it is within a window of less than 40 years. Therefore, we need to capitalize on energy alternatives, which are Biomass Energy, Wind Energy, Solar Energy, Geothermal Energy, Hydroelectric Energy sources. What these alternative energy sources do in comparison to any individual fossil fuel energy source is that it is renewable in terms of relative timeframe to fossil fuel sources and the source of the energy is… free! Solar, by far, is the most likely energy source for conversion to electricity or thermal energy (depending on your location to mostly sunny days a year).

I used several well-known images for my poster to exhibit the pollution cause by coal stacks spewing lethal chemicals into the air and traveling significant distances causing environmental effects. I also chose to use an iconic image of Iron Eyes Cody from the early 1970’s environmental advertisements. Instead of using a modern home, I chose to use a 18^th century cabin with photovoltaic (solar) panels, while taking a vibrant sun and diminishing the opacity of the sun and using the coal stacks grey sky background to give the impression of blocking or reducing the sun’s rays from reaching the ground and rendering the solar panel as useless.  There is the step back into time and reverting to a “settler” lifestyle by placing an early 19^th century candid family picture along with a more modern little girl from a third world country that appears to be despondent and of whom I thought expresses the feeling of insecurity in humankind’s insatiable consumption of fossil fuel and resultant pollution to our world. Of course, she’s upset too that there are dead fish in the rising waters that is surrounding the vehicle she is trying to fish from and this also alludes to detrimental implications to our shared environment. To express the anxiety of a heavenly entity, the exhausted angle atop the cabin’s roof mounted solar panel, as if to say not even heaven can save our “Garden of Eden”. Note that the only images that have any color are the solar panel, the sun and the angle while all the other images are in greyscale. For the angle, I chose to increase the white balance to given her more of a heavenly appearance.

Use of Photoshop tools: Since the majority of the images used in this poster are grey scale, I simply used the Image, Adjustment and Black & White tool. Depending on the original color and its transition to grey scale, I may have increased or decreased the opacity so that a layer beneath it would be visible. I also used Image, Image Rotation to get the right placement and then I manipulated the image by skewing it for proper perspective. To help blend images where there were significant transitions from one to the other, I used the Clone Stamp tool. Finally, I freestyled the fishing line by using the Freeform Pen tool and for the text I kept it bone stock by using the Calibri Regular and increased to 150pt font.

References

Aficionados, A. E. (2016, March 11). Alternative Energy Solutions for the 21st Century. Retrieved from Alternative Energy: http://www.altenergy.org/

 Wolfson, R. (2012). Energy, Environment, and Climate 2nd edition. New York City: W. W. Norton & Company.

 

 

 

 

Angle Image: http://tntfamilyhistory.blogspot.com/2013_06_01_archive.html

Iron Eyes Cody Image:  http://dontblinkmusic.org/thesuite/#ironeyes

Dead Fish Image: http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/sep/14/sewage-spill-raises-questions-about-pump-station-r/

Family Photo Image: http://civilwartalk.com/threads/sad-family-portrait-something-tragically-off.108326/
Text Credit (first line): http://quotesgram.com/quotes-about-green-energy/

Log Cabin Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_cabin

Young Girl Image: http://justadopt.net/

Sun Image: http://elvenstock.deviantart.com/art/Free-Stock-Image-of-Quarter-Sun-455928413

Flooded Car Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood

Solar Panel Image: http://www.howtomakeasolarpanels.com/diy-solar-panels-solar-panel-save-money-electric-bill/

Fishing Rod Image: http://www.dioramasandcleverthings.com/2012/10/the-wonderful-world-of-gadget-canes.html

Coal Stack Images: https://thenanfang.com/beijing-coal-fired-power-plants-closed-next-year/

M3 Poster Assignment

 

My sketch is focused on the current state of the world and our combined rate of consumption of fossil fuels (oil, natural gas and coal) that has significantly contributed to the otherwise natural and non-toxic CO2 gas in our atmosphere. However, the increase in the concentration of the CO2 gas has caused an issue by forming a "blanket" in our atmosphere and not allowing the solar energy to reflect back into space, as it would otherwise do.

Solar energy is "free" energy and having that knowledge available to us is key because the world's fossil fuel energy resources (known to currently exist) are exponentially be consumed at a rate that can not be replenished. In other words, yes... fossil fuels can and will be replenished... but not within a time frame of one or two generations. Rather, the estimated timeframe is in millions of years and humanity's continued existence is not capable of any lapse or loss of fossil fuel source. And even if we were capable, the global warming and contamination resulting from fossil fuel sources is going to kill us anyway.

That is why I decided depict the social demise of humanity by sketching a draft of a vision of how the world may look with fossil fuel contaminants and how such pollutants are working both against our health, but also against us if we were to substantially use a less volatile fuel source of the sun's energy via use of photovoltaic panels.

Within the sketch I depict pollution, obscurity of the sun's ability to reach earth (due to atmospheric contaminants, aka: smog), a revert back to a lifestyle before fossil fuels became so popular, the inability to grow crops for the lack of sunlight for photosynthesis, deforestation, and perhaps the most unforgivable issue of technology brought us to this crux and now we are stuck with it!

Think something along the line of "Planet of the Apes"... if your having trouble with my rationale for the sketch, but with 10^15 times as much pollution as we have now.

Resources:
Energy, Environment and Climate- R. Wolfson 2nd edition ( 2012) published by W.W. Norton & Co.

"Planet of the Apes"- Pierre Boulle, (1963) published by René Julliard

movie trailer https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjcpRHuPjOI