Book Design Project using Photoshop Illustration.
Flower Empath – Mary Lyons – Canberra – 2020 -2021
This book was designed as an A4 landscape coffee table book. This is the second project we’ve done together and probably the most challenging and satisfying project of my career.
The book was the second piece of work inspired by Mary’s floral macro photography. The intention was to make an inspirational and premium coffee table book, with double-page spread illustrations and high-end printing and case bound binding.
The illustration style evolved over time. Initially, the references show to me by Mary were like watercolours and inks, but on further consult, I suggested using my skill base in Photoshop to bring her interpretation to life.
The poems and photography pages would be similar to our last project as shown below. But for the double-page speads preceding these pages, I would make illustrate her intuitive visions within the macro photography by manipulating her flower images into something else completely.
For example, a flower would become a mountain or a wave or a volcano or a cloud. This allowed us to tie the poems and the images together, in what I think was a brilliant and unique way of interpreting the macroscopic world of flowers within the more commonly observed world of nature.
The Goal – Premium Quality design and finish
The aim of this second book is to help Mary Lyons establish herself as an inspirational artist through nature photography and inspirational writing.
Design Budget
Approx $8,500 plus printing
We budgeted for about 100 hours plus expenses. The project did take longer than anticipated and 9 months to complete, however, I loved the project so much I was happy to put in the extra time. Plus Mary allowed me a lot of creative freedom and was great to deal with.
Design and print artwork and finish
Mary is very happy with the end result of the design and print quality. 20 master copies have been printed for marketing purposes. They are case bound with gloss celloglaze, with quality satin stock for the internals.
Publishing deal to come
Once a publishing deal is secured Mary will get the book reproduced in larger quantities and available in bookstores around the world.
Coffee Table Book Design – 2018
A Beautiful Unfolding – Commissioned by – Mary Lyons – Canberra – 2018
This book was designed as a small coffee table book bringing together her poems and photography along with some of her personal illustrations.
Mary had no design experience at this stage, so we started with an edited Word Document. The spreads were broken into 400 single pages, which we later condensed into 260 pages.
I budgeted for about 100 hours.
To indicate a final result within a smaller timeframe, I broke the job into 5 to 6 template designs (10% budget). Once Mary was happy with the concepts I proceeded with all of the pages (90% budget).
This provided a way to show what the book would look like within the first 5-10 hours. Once these templates were approved I was able to populate the remaining 150 pages with the confidence of achieving a great result.
Printing and design result
Mary was very happy with the end result, which ultimately leads me to produce the hero project in 2021, shown above with more bells and whistles.
