Wild Rescue Series: Forrest Fire

Before I was in this business of freelance illustration/graphic Design I was clueless as to how much work can be involved for just making one book cover. Wild Rescue series is the first project where I was asked to only do the cover designs as the series already has internal illustrations done by Diane Le Feyer of Cartoon Saloon.
Actually the series has already been published in the UK by Stripes Publishing last year and launched into the market with cover illustrations done by Andrew Hutchinson.
See.

So why am I needed? Well Hardie Grant Egmont decided to relaunch this series in Australia. To give the series a new vibe they decided to remove the beautiful realistic illustrations on the cover, which actually made the series appear as wild life documentary books, and go with something that reflected the inside of the books better- comic style of Diane Le Feyer.

This was my first time where I had to work in someone else's style, quite different to any I have done in the past. Anyway I took on the job. Starting with "Forrest Fire" (the red cover with the Orangutan).
Fist I did some roughs and a quick colour scheme.

 

Going with the right option I came up with some potential directions I could work up the colours and background.

 

Other than the colours and background I started thinking about the new logo design and how the end look can apply to the remaining three books I still had to design. Anyway after this over 30 cover options were pushed back and forth between the lovely editor at Hardie Grant Egmont and I. I could upload them all but that would be a waste of cyberspace.  Here goes some I've picked out so you can get the feel.

 

Anyway the eventually we got there.

And three more followed. But I will talk about those some other day.

The back covers? WELL! That's whole another story!

Anyway the books are great! Suitable for children aged 7+. At the end of each books there are some interesting fact about endangered animals so very educational too! The four books were launched in January 2011. Haven't come across any in shops here (NZ) yet. Hopefully they are doing well in Aussie!