BRIEF: Develop a typographic treatment and design of your cover and final book or a visual response to the poem, "Hope" is the only thing with Feathers by Emily Dickinson.
CONCEPT: Children's Story Book, Illustrated Book
APPLICATIONS: Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, Procreate
YEAR: 2022REFLECTION: This is one of my favourite works, I particularly love the grainy texture I added as I believe it really lifts up the illustrations. One of the challenges I faced was regarding the illustration of the bird as I haven't really drawn any before. To help tackle this, I looked up reference images of birds flying from various different angles to help get me an idea of how to illustrate them in certain positions and angles of the story in a somewhat accurate way.
MAIN CHARACTERS: For this proposed narrative, I have chosen two main characters. Coral, a little girl, and the Phoenix, the ‘feathered bird’ mentioned in my chosen narrative. The girl will be wearing plain clothes so as to not make her stand out much to showcase the inner sadness and darkness she is experiencing. The Phoenix, however, will be glowing and shining in comparison representing hope. This will showcase that no matter how much darkness one may be in, the hope within their soul will bright ever so bright regardless.
SYNOPSIS: "Hope" is the thing with feathers was written by Emily Dickinson around the late 1800s. I first came across this poem a few months ago while I was struggling to go on and was deeply touched by it and, as the name suggests, it gave me a shred of hope. Dickinson portrays this sense of hope through a metaphorical sense of a bird, showing that no matter the depths of darkness one may be stuck in, their soul will be singing throughout the pain, reaching its wings out in hope of the light coming through.
She further depicts how, despite the hardest and coldest days, through “storms” and “the strangest of seas,” which may even kill, regardless, the little bird keeps going, and “sings the tune without the words,” never asking her even for a crumb in return, reminding the readers that no matter how loud the storms may roar, you can still hear the sweet voice of this bird singing through it all, implying no matter how great the chaos may be, the perseverance of the human soul raging through us as hope, is even greater.
PROCESS WORK:
