This page if going to be for the cast and crew content. My idea straight off the bat was that this would be a sort character bio/ get to know the characters better section that comes after you’ve read the story of Apollo 11.
Inspiration
For this section I decided that I want it to be very linear, in part because of time constraints and it would make the most sense for this section to be most linear in layout as it’s character bios so the layout for each crew member should be basically the same but also because I remembered how much I liked the panelling in Monthly Girls Nozaki-Kun where its four rectangles of the same size and width, it kinda feels like every page is an individual comic strip.
I also looked into screen tone which is a technique for applying textures and shades to drawings, used as an alternative to hatching. In conventional use patterns are transferred to paper from pre-printed sheets, but the technique is also simulated in computer graphics, which is what I’m gonna do with the backgrounds for this page.
I downloaded a bunch of different screen tone and half tone pens to experiment with on photoshop.
I also remembered to look at this k-pop album I have that’s design was inspired by sci-fi comics…
I think what was most interesting to look at for this page was the cards with bios of each member. There are a lot of cool things happening with this album.
Sketches
After I had built an idea of what I wanted to do in my head, I sketched it all out…
Assembly
Based on my sketches I made all the different components. I first set a margin for the page and I decided that the rectangles should fit within the screen (don’t get cut off), that let me know how much room I’d have for content within the rectangle panels and how big the panels could be.
I decided to have an introductory paragraph in a slightly bigger font size in a blue text box just to differentiate it from the rest of the content.
One of the first things I did was style and set down my images. I decided to try and stick to public domain images which isn’t too hard since majority of Apollo related photos are in public domain. I had to give all the images the right boarders like for each astronaut I added this overlapping boarder to make them pop out more and I think I’m going to use it on the rest of my images where applicable.
I then got my content in order. I settled on a narrative text box design that I’m going to keep consistent throughout. Pale yellow with a slight solid shadow effect. I a noticed brighter yellow being used quite often but I felt that on a screen that might a bit too harsh on readers eyes.
Once I had my text box design I added text to them. This was a painstaking process as I need the text to fit as well as it possibly could in order to achieve a hand lettered look.
This meant a lot of experimenting where to cut the line off and changing some of the wording to make it fit better. I also experimented with typefaces for their names. It took time but eventually I got there. Some might think me crazy for being so particular about how the text looks in the book but I thinking it’s a small detail that can really enhance the experience and feeling that this site is like a comic.
Once I knew the size of each panel I was also able to take them into photoshop and play with screen tones till I found the right look because with out them the panels would just be too plain.
Final Result
Here’s how the page ended up…
I’m quite happy with how it’s turned out, still have a lot of work to do though.