Artist Statement:
This project is the first publication in a series of illustrated coffee books about coffee houses in Springfield, Missouri. Each issue would cover a specific coffee house and their prominent features such as their menu. The first issue features Potters House. The goal of this publication series is to provide an in-depth exploration of all the great coffee houses in Springfield, Missouri that people otherwise might not know.
The entire project is being illustrated in Adobe Illustrator. Once the spreads are created, they will then be printed through Lulu, a self-publishing book company. For the illustrations to remain consistent, I used a pressure brush with similar stroke sizes. The main color pallet in the publication is mocha and the colors of the Springfield flag, dark blue and light blue. Before the spreads are finalized, they go through a series of iterations.
Fred Woodward is one of the creative influences in this publication. His creative use of typography in relation to imagery is a technique that I referenced in my design process. Another element that influenced this publication was Woodward’s spread design. In some of his spreads, he separates type and imagery by pages. This helped me create a consistent layout in my publication series.
The Font:
The font used throughout the publication is Fredoka. Fredoka set the foundation for the logo as well as the overall style of the publication. All iterations of Fredoka were used, those being; Light, Regular, Medium, Semi-Bold, and Bold. This font fit the overall feel of Potter's House, a warm and welcoming location to enjoy a warm cup of coffee.
The Logo:
In order to create a consistent brand within this publication series, I created a logo to represent the coffee book publication. The letters SGF are an initialism of Springfield and the handle of the coffee cup is in the shape of a coffee bean. Before the logo was finalized, I created 5 initial logos. I opted for a variation of the middle, simple rounded logo because it meshed well with the illustrative style that I was going for.
House Tour Spreads:
The idea of this spread is to give the view an idea of what the inside of the coffee house is like. To produce the illustrations I took photos inside Potter's House with the permission of one of the managers. I then did all the line work on the photos with a sensitive pressure brush on a Wacom tablet. After the line work, each illustration was layered with colors similar to that of the photo.
Spread Design Process:
The creation of each spread is heavily reliant on an iterative process. Each spread went through about 6 to 8 iterations before being complete. To start each spread I mocked up 3 rough iterations to give myself a sense of direction. Once one is selected, layers of illustrations are put together and organized. To give each spread consistency, an illustrative title is placed on the left. This doesn't occur on the second part of 'House Tour' to break up the publication and avoid to much repetition.
Production:
This publication was printed through lulu.com because other publication companies require 20 or more pages to print. Lulu has no requirement, so I was able to print with 12 pages. The spreads were transferred from Illustrator into InDesign. After being formatted in InDesign, a pdf for the cover, inside cover, and interior pages was made. The PDF's were then uploaded to Lulu for production. I opted for a gloss finish and ordered 3 copies for the gallery. In addition to the publications, a poster was displayed with the booklets.
Thank You
