The Lost Ann-Mi

I’ve got a really fun project going right now - designing a daily planner for a bar that hosts art exhibitions every month. So it will be an artist a month. That planner already has a set style from last year, but I still love to look at other peoples’ designs to see what solutions they’ve come up with.

I’ve focused mainly on the cover for this post, since there are so many potentially awesome design elements to any book. 

Everyone knows Moleskine’s vast array of daily planners, so I thought I’d share a few nifty ones I found online instead.

Erinzam - 2010 Planner

This is a planner Erinzam created just for herself, using premade pages sold on etsy. I love the creative use of old spines of books as straps for the binding. The yellow string is a lovely touch on an otherwise minimalistic but beautiful design. All in all, a work of art.

Millicent - Small personalized planner

This colorful planner is designed by Millicent. I love the detail of the monthly tabs along with the bold, cheerful textures. Also, if you follow the link and look inside of the calendar, you will see that the pages inside are also decorated with the letter “M”. A really nice touch!

Bunches of Apples Daily Planner

The cute “Bunches of Apples” daily planner is designed by Nicole. (I have no idea how to pronounce the name of her etsy shop: “ncharshaf”) I like the idea of the rubber band to hold the planner closed. There are few things as annoying as finding that your book has opened in your backpack and now all the pages are scrunched!

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Resources:

Just something I made: Vintage book planner tutorial
This tutorial takes an unwanted but pretty vintage book cover with a premade spiral planner and a decorative file folder and combines them all into a unique and simple planner

Photoshop Vintage Traveler Diary
Just in case you’d rather make one in photoshop than in real life… No, but seriously, the reason I included this tutorial was that perhaps it could give you some ideas on the actual design of the pages. You could fill the planner with some cool, decorative pages made in the same style as the finished product in this tutorial.

Droplet DIY planner and calendar pages

In case you already know how to bind your book and you just need the content, here’s the content! Droplet sells these nice premade calendar and planner pages for you to use for your own personal projects.

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Note: Weirdly enough, there aren’t too many tutorials out there for planners that I could find, so if you do find one, please send me a link and I’ll add it here. Also, feel free to share your favorite planner designs!

There are plenty of ideas for decorating covers, or for binding books, however, so perhaps it’s best to rely on those tutorials meanwhile.

If you’ve ever tried to scan an image or article from a magazine and some books, you’ve probably noticed that the scanner picks up all the ugly little dots that make up the image instead of presenting it to you as you see it: more uniform bodies of color.

I just re-discovered the problem myself, and after refreshing myself on how to get rid of the problem at scantips.com ‘s Descreen for moiré tutorial, I thought I’d make a simpler tutorial myself. Their article is full of all the technical explanations and whatnot, so if you’re interested in those, go take a peek there. If, however, you’re as simpleminded as me and you just want to know how to get rid of it, keep reading here.

Unfortunately, my tutorial assumes that you have Adobe Photoshop and not a descreening function built into the scanner. Scantips offers some tips on what to do if this isn’t your situation.

The first step is to scan in the image at twice the resolution you intend to present the final product in. I like to have my files at 300 dpi, so if you’re like me, you should scan it in at 600 dpi. (This can usually be found under the custom options of your scanner).

Then, zoom in nice and close and take a look at the sucker at 100% zoom. Observe the pattern and frown. Then whip out your handy-dandy Gaussian Blur (Filter » Blur » Gaussian Blur…). Fiddle with the options like in the image below and blur it just until the dots are gone. You don’t want to blur it too much or the image quality will suffer. Remember the radius that you used here, as you’ll need the same radius in the next step.

Then shrink the image size by 50%. You’ll notice the moiré is gone, but that your image now looks pretty blurry. Also, go in a second time and change the image Resolution down to 300dpi (assuming you scanned with 600dpi), making sure that Resample Image is unchecked. Now your image will print out in the same size as it would have originally despite your shrinking the image by 50%. 

Now it’s time to bring out your secondary weapon - Unsharp Mask (Filter » Sharpen » Unsharp Mask…). Shove in the same radius amount as you used in the Gaussian Blur. Twiddle with the other options until you get a satisfying result. Remember to compare both image areas and text areas, making sure you don’t sharpen too much or too little in either area. 

Finally, use your weapon of choice for adjusting the image brightness and contrast, layers, etc to a more accurate reading. Look at the original magazine colors as reference.

While I was cleaning my room, I found a piece of paper offering some very good tips on using colored pencils. Ellen Millon wrote these to me via e-mail back in June 2000 when I asked her for a few tips. Click here to view her beautiful stuff. These following tips are extremely valuable especially when trying to draw people.

If you find these tips useful, you can find more of her articles and tutorials over here.

“Self-portrait with wings”, Ellen Million, colored pencils, 2006

Tips:

Get good pencils. Most of these techniques will only work with very waxy pencils, like Prismacolors, on good thick paper. (Bristol paper is the best)

Don’t try to erase them.

Sharpen them as often as you need to, I use an eyebrow pencil sharpener to avoid a lot of color waste.

I usually start with a light pencil or ink outline to figure out exactly where I want everything. Watch out for pencil, though, because the gray pencil lines will blend into the colored pencil, and can look messy. A very hard lead is best if you want to use a pencil sketch to start with. (I like to use ink because it’s so crisp, but it can tend to look a little cartoony.

Choose a light source, or at least a general direction that the light is coming from. Figure out where you want your shadows, and lay them in with a blue-gray (I usually use Slate Gray). Put the color on in a gradient, going from dark in extreme shadows (under chins, inside cuffs, etc.), to just the tiniest bit of color (under cheekbones…). Sometimes I add some green or purple to the shadows too. (Though you have to be careful with the green or the person looks sick).

For light or tanned skin, I use a combination of Terra Cotta, Henna and Sienna Brown, all slightly reddish browns, and put this color everywhere that shadows would be (right over the Slate Gray), and very lightly (darker for darker skin, of course) onto the rest of the skin. Leave white areas where highlights would be: the bridge of the nose, the forehead, tops of the cheeks, top of the arm, etc. Add extra Henna (pinkish brownish color) to the cheeks and the lips, or a darker red on the lips, if desired.

Now (for the skin, still), start to blend in the color with a light pencil. I usually use a French Gray 10%. It isn’t as starkly whit eas white (which looks pastey for skin), and it isn’t as yellow-y as Cream. (Cream also blends with the Slate Gray to look greenish). Use a tiny circular motion to blend some French Gray into the colors w hich are already down. You should apply some pressure to the pencil, and you will end up with a very coated, thick-looking color. If the tiny circular motion isn’t working, try little short lines following the contours of teh shape you are coloring. Really put the color down! You may want to experiment a little on the side before you color a special piece to figure out how much of the browns and blues you want to put down before you blend in the light color. It’s hard to put down even looking color on top of the blending color.

For silky or smooth textured items, use a true white as your blending tol, and be sure to leave lots of highlights. For red or blond hair, use a bright yellow. For something in the shade of something darker, use a darker gray.

The most important thing, though, is to really apply the color. Get so much wax down on the page that it looks like an oil painting.

As you get into the piece, you’ll notice that a filmy coating is developing on the color, sort of as if you can see each pencil stroke pushing around a layer on top of the color. Ignore this until the end. It is the wax that is not absorbed by the paper. When you are all done, take a clean cotton ball and delicately rub off the entire piece. It may smear the color a tad (really not much), so it’s a good idea to rotate the cotton ball to get a clean surface for each different area of color. You will be amazed at the gloss and beautiful finish on the color!

Hmm… Well I hope that helps. This isn’t the same technique that everyone uses, not by any means, and I seem to have concentrated on people, but I hope you get something out of this and that it is helpful to you!”