Thursday, September 6, 2012

cover design: when boredness strikes.

When you develop a blister by 9 a.m. you know the day is going to be a long one. True to form, by the time I got home all I wanted was a cup of coffee, a chocolate bar and a nap, not necessarily in that order.

Still, I had things to be doing besides caffeinating,  bingeing or sleeping. Most specifically I should have curled up with the monstrous stack of papers in dire need of my red pen's attention, but I just couldn't make myself. Opening any WIP revisions made me want to eat fifteen pounds of m&m's, and that's not really conducive to the current fitness torture regimen.

Instead I dragged my body and laptop to the nearest recliner and collapsed. Ended up opening GIMP 2, a program I've been meaning to master and just haven't put in the time or effort. (Because I'm pretty goal-oriented, jacking around--on something that's not writing, anyway--with no real project in mind isn't my idea of a good time.) I needed a project that was simple and pretty straightforward to A) not murder my little fried brain and B) not exceed my very limited GIMP skills. The end result was a mock cover for the WIP, which felt like actually working on it but at the same time not. (Best of both worlds, really. Delusions are wonderful.)

In the end I edited the flowers in GIMP and then crapped out and copied/pasted/rearranged/resized in Paint, which is when things got a little distorted, but hey. All's well in procrastination. Some of the text, the tagline specifically, is kind of hard to read, but I'm actually pretty pleased with it. Hereyago:



Right. Now to [try and] actually get something productive done.

Currently listening to: The Perishers--My Heart
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5 comments:

  1. UnknownSeptember 7, 2012 at 10:50 AM

    I have a love/hate relationship with GIMP. Love the price, hate the interface. I used to use photoshop but can't afford that anymore.

    I, too, use GIMP for the advanced stuff but use simpler programs for the basics (Picasa's free tool does surprisingly well on basic photo editing).

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    1. leegomezSeptember 7, 2012 at 3:32 PM

      I love photoshop--great, easy to use program. I had some sort of capability-limited version that was given to high-school teachers. My mom didn't have any inclination to use it so she gave it to me. Even though it wasn't a full version, I still managed everything I wanted to do with it. I would be using it now but somewhere in the last couple moves the installation cd got lost and then the laptop it was installed on kicked the bucket.

      I am struggling with GIMP, honestly. Somewhere along the way I closed out of the layers window and I'm not sure how to make it reappear...oye.

      Thanks for stopping by :)

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  2. randi leeSeptember 9, 2012 at 9:10 AM

    I love the design! It looks beautiful, Lee. I'm a Photoshop junkie, personally...though I've gotten more into InDesign recently to put the pieces together.

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    1. leegomezSeptember 9, 2012 at 9:26 AM

      Thanks! I've never heard of/seen InDesign, but I don't really keep up with photo editing software much. The only reason I heard of GIMP was because I was looking for a more affordable alternative to PS. (And 'free' is pretty darn affordable, even for me, hahaha :)

      Thanks for stopping by--hope your hand is feeling better!

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  3. Steven WSeptember 9, 2012 at 11:18 AM

    Nice job, Lee. Always been amazed by artists. I have trouble conceptualizing a stick-figure.

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