In this exercise, I will produce three illustrations for a series of book jackets, the size of an existing travel guide, for the locations Istanbul, Helsinki and Milan.  The client would like me to create illustrations in which many elements are brought together in a diagrammatic way.  They would also like the type to be hand-drawn in an appropriate style.  I will provide client visuals for all three covers and a mockup for one.

Writing myself a brief

I have brainstormed and used a spider diagram to put together a brief for this project.

The travel guide should be big enough to read easily and small enough to carry around while travelling.  The shape should be easy to fit into a pocket.  At first glance, it should immediately be recognisable as a travel guide.  The jacket should be colourful but directed towards adults.  Consider looking at the flags, weather, culture and folk art when choosing your colours.  The guide will primarily be used by adults, couples, families with children, tour groups and business travellers. 

Create a cover to arouse interest in what is inside.  The travel guide content will have the following information: 

• Different ways of travelling in the city, using the train, tube (underground), aeroplane, ferry or bicycle.
• Restaurants, cafés and bistros to eat and places of interest for “foodies”.
• Interesting facts (historical or informational)
• Sight-seeing interests in culture, historical places and museums

Keep in mind the best time to travel in the particular city and when using people in your illustration, be mindful of the season and appropriate clothes for that season. 

Think about a plan, sketch, drawing or outline design to demonstrate or explain how the travel guide works, describe the content of the travel guide, or illustrate a conceptual representation of the city’s culture. 

Creating mood boards

I created a moodboard for each city and was looking at different hand lettering, folk art and explored the possibility of using the map in an illustrative way.  I quickly realised that the three cities are very different, and it will be a challenge to make the guides cohesive as a series. 

I revisited one of my favourite illustrators, Sara Mulvanny, to explore how she does her map illustrations and also looked at similar illustrations of various artists on Behance.  I am also considering doing the map as a side view and will explore this further when doing the thumbnail sketches.

I explored book jackets of travel guides and brochures and included them in my mood board.  I especially selected the book jackets with simple designs and was attracted to the designs using negative space to illustrate an image.  I am now ready to do my thumbnail sketches and get some ideas down on paper.

I explored the top ten things to do and google earth to get a feel of the different locations. (Google Earth, 2022) (Things to do, 2022)

I have made thumbnail drawings of the significant places of interest in each city and also tried to capture the culture with visuals and the use of colour.  I have decided to use digital medium for this exercise.  The finished size is 10cm width x 19cm height, the same size as the DK Eyewitness travel guides. 

Overall, this was a challenging exercise, especially finding a way to bring everything together in a diagrammatic way.  

References:

Google Earth, 2022. Google Earth. [Online] 
Available at: https://earth.google.com/web/
[Accessed 13 April 2022].

Things to do, 2022. Things to do. [Online] 
Available at: https://www.google.com/travel/things-to-do
[Accessed 13 April 2022].