HERE ARE 2 COVERS I'VE MADE DURING THE CLASS. SEE THE PROCESS BELOW.

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 1 - student project

August 10

Hello classmates!

This is the first day of my project and my first day on Skillshare too and I LOVE the space!

As much as I'm inspired by Jessica's adoresome teaching I'm inspired by projects already published. Hope that it's still a lot going on in this class and we'll share feedback.

Book that I've selected is Borrowed life by Erich Maria Remarque. I read this book a couple of years ago and then I thought it is mostly about premonition of death. Today I started reading it again and now I see it's more about love!

So probably this will be a good starting point.

Now I'm going to do brainstorm. See you soon!

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UPD August 11

Today my brain got really stormy: I did notes and was thinking in English to make them open for critique from you guys!

Here are the notes:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 2 - student project

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 3 - student project

Now I see 5 options that i like:

1) Hands — Clerfayt holds Lillian's hand or the black glove of her. There was an episode when she lost a glove an he sent it back to her when they had just met. And also black glove is like a hand of death — Clerfayt got smashed up during races...

2) A hand, a handkerchief with blood spots. She is sick. This option is similar to the previous one, but is less about love and more sad and trivial too. Doubt about it.

3) White orchids. Just beautiful.

4) Italian futurism, speed, road loops. It's very inspiring but too thematic and has almost nothing to do with the idea, like some feckless background. Maybe it reflect speed and fragility of life experience but that's all. Should think about it more and get some refs.

5) Flying — flying together or apart. Crazy random idea about love of 2 phantoms. Also I have to get one execution of that idea out of my brain. It is based on other artist's work and I won't use it anyway. It's Marc Chagall's piece transformed. Original piece:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 4 - student project

Letter R:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 5 - student project

Next is sketching. Stay tuned!

Comments are more than welcome!

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UPD August 12

Here are the sketches compiled:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 6 - student project

What I see now:

I go from idea to letterform and as a result LEGIBILITY suffers. Maybe I should focus on letterform first and then find some imagery in it — start with R's skeleton as Jessica suggests.
First and second concepts could go well together. Futurism itself has nothing to do with time in the book (50s) but can illustrate speed.
I LOVE the last one concept. Hope that exploring skeleton of the R, decoration on the glove and a bit richer styling of Clerfayt's hand will add much.

Feedback is soooo welcome!

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UPD September 1st

Hi classmates, how was your summer?

Latin script isn't native to me so I've spent some extra time exploring R's letterform and refined my sketch according to dos and don't of the shape. I'm pleased with the result cause now it's much more like a drop cap and not an illo.

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 7 - student project

Also I'm going to move the intonation of the piece from a thriller to something more lyrical and I'm going to do this with color and styling while vectorizing the sketch.

A sketch to explore color:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 8 - student project

Feedback is always appreciated!

UPD October 26th

Hi there! After some time away from studying there's nothing left to say but to show the final result.

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 9 - student project

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 10 - student project

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 11 - student project

What do you think?

P.S. The class was magnificent. Thanks Jessica and everyone for comments.

UPD October 30th

Hello classmates!

Today I made a cover for Nikolai Gogol's The Nose. The idea came to me accidentally, so there was no any brainstorming stage. I wanted to draw a nose in a shape of letter G. Or the letter G shaped as a nose :) Anyway, here are the sketches:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 12 - student project

The final cover:

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 13 - student project

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 14 - student project

R for Remarque & G for Gogol - image 15 - student project

For the back I used translation of the book available here: https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/g/gogol/nikolai/g61n/

Thanks for watching!

If you like what I do let's make friends: behance, dribbble, instagram.

Kate Zavolokina

Designer, letterer, translator, linguist

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