Title Unknown by Igor Skaletsky

Hi! Remember me? Probably not cause it’s been a while. I’m not super active on here anymore but I still wanted to share a couple of book cover designs I created recently that I’m really proud of! You can find me on Instagram where I’m much more active these days.

So yeah, just wanted to check in and say hi because I still love sharing my art here since it’s where it all started. Love you all and stay healthy 💜

Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world: small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.

practice social distancing by going to one of those vampire castles where the vampire will encourage you to stay for dinner but you have to sit at opposite ends of an extremely long table

She never crossed the line. If there’s one thing I hate, it’s people who cross the line. Parasite (2019) dir. Bong Joon-ho

Florence Pugh for VOGUE Magazine, February 2020 PHOTOGRAPHED BY DANIEL JACKSON

“your password is weak”

You’re the weak one And you’ll never know love, or friendship And I feel sorry for you

I have nothing to prove to you.

Daenerys Targaryen in Game of Thrones 8.01 Winterfell

Do you make everything from your book covers by yourself? I always find it difficult to make stuff from my head and always need an example, but sometimes that feels like cheating to me. Perhaps that’s just my insecurity. How do you go about making book covers?

There’s nothing wrong with looking for inspiration elsewhere! I almost always start by looking at examples of book covers I really like and taking pointers from other designers. Once I know roughly what I want the design to look like, I basically just start mocking up stuff with stock images and illustrations (: I’m not sure if you want me to go more in-depth into my whole process but this is it in a nutshell. Just lots of revisions and looking for inspiration in other people’s work.

me: ugh i hate clichés

the plot: and then they find out that the character everyone thought had died holding off the enemy forces after helping the heroes escape was actually captured by the villain and has been alive this whole time

me, crying: omg they were alive the whole time

It does not do to dwell on dreams, Harry, and forget to live.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001) dir. Chris Columbus

I’ve been looking out a window for eighteen years, dreaming about what it might feel like when those lights rise in the sky. What if it’s not everything I dreamed it would be? It will be. And what if it is? What do I do then? Well that’s the good part I guess, you get to go find a new dream.

Love the harry potter places gifs. Is there one for Diagon Alley or The Hogwarts Express? Literally my favourite places in Harry Potter!

I *think* I made one for Diagonal Alley but I can’t find it right now cause I’m about to board a plane lol. I’ve been meaning to get into making edits again so I’ll add the Hogwarts Express to my list!

you def do not have to answer, but I have to ask how your graphics look so polished with the text and everything? like in your animated poster, there’s like an extra “mmph” that ties the whole thing together looking so polished. Lol, but either way, I just have to say your graphics and everything you do is so inspirational.

Ummmmm I truly am not sure what you’re talking about lol. Do you mean the actual quality or the design? If you’re talking about the design then with those posters, I made sure to keep the text design relative simple with only a few embellishments so it didn’t crowd anything. I also made sure to keep the busiest part of the image/background in the lower half so the text had room to “breathe” (I hate this saying lol) and so it didn’t get lost. Hope that helped!

do you have any tips for learning graphic design? i always wanted to learn it but it's not the course i took unfortunately

The best way to learn is to just do it. I started by messing around in Photoshop and learning the basics about photo editing, then moved into graphic design. There are lots of online tutorials that you can read and follow to learn about the basics. While it’s useful to do general knowledge-gathering, I find it’s actually more helpful to work on specific projects. For example, I actually learned a lot by just creating graphics on Tumblr. If I saw an effect I want to replicate, I’d either find a tutorial or find my own way of achieving the same look. You learn more when you bend the tools to your needs, if that makes sense. It gives you a more intimate understanding of the ways they can and can’t work.

Look for designs that you like so you always stay inspired to learn and improve. It’s hard to be good at graphic design, but not impossible. You don’t have to go to school for it, you just have to have a lot of patience and to really want to work towards a goal. It took me pretty much ten years to go from editing selfies to making graphics on Tumblr to illustrating and designing for my campus newspaper to finally working at a professional level. Again, I didn’t take a single course on graphic design, so it goes to show that if you’re willing to work at it, you’ll get somewhere. The best advice I have for you is to just sit down and do it—every day if you have time.