THE BRIEF
This ebook is part of an online course developed by Photographer Laura Boyd. Her business revolves around boudoir photo shoots for women who discover their inner goddess and can see their own beauty, confidence and sensuality.
Now Laura has written a guide for women to find and “own their sexy” through personal development with the help of chakras.
The logo colours and typography provided a starting point for the book as it was supposed to tie into the existing branding of “OWN YOUR SEXY”. My client also requested the use of watercolour for the portrait of a meditating woman, to be shown on the cover and inside page to explain the chakra concept.
Colours: Black, hot pink, purple, grey
Typography: Bold sans serif font paired with calligraphic cursive font
The chakras each have a unique colour which will be represented in their specific chapter.
THE PROCESS
THE COVER
The cover is representing the inner peace and calm confident girls have (through meditation) and the channelling of their “wild side” (watercolour splashes and swirls) at the same time.
I first created a pencil (then ink) drawing of the girl, which got coloured later on. Some decorative elements were placed around it to enhance the feminine, peaceful look.
Then watercolour background texture was added and the title set up with the branding typefaces. The cover works well in large sizes and as a thumbnail. Due to the book being an ebook and featured in smaller sizes it was important to have a powerful layout that can work in any size.
THE BOOK INTERIOR
Each chapter is the representation of one chakra which focuses on different aspects of your body and mind to improve mental and physical wellbeing.
The classic chakra symbols were used but recreated in a more modern, loose style and combined with irregular, natural looking watercolour washes in the colour of the corresponding chakra.
Also, a “summary shout out box” was created for each chakra on the opposite side for a quick overview.
The text was broken into manageable chunks and made more readable through varying fonts (which are like the clients branding fonts and a simple text font) and important parts were highlighted through different typeface styles. This makes it easy for the client to read the text and understand.
ADDITIONAL DESIGN – MANIFESTO POSTER
At the end, a manifesto poster summarises the book and it’s teachings and with the option to print, client can hang the manifesto on their walls for easy memory.
The design had a watercolour texture background to tie in with the rest of the watercolour design style.
THE RESULTS
The book was turned into several ebook formats by me (epub, pdf, mobi), so that Laura could sell it on several platforms, like Amazon Kindle.
It proved very popular in its category and several readers comment on the beautiful design of the ebook. It can be rare finding an ebook that is designed as beautifully as a pdf, is reflowable and still easy to navigate and read. I worked hard on making sure that the final ebook files were as well designed as the print pdf version.
