Bite-Sized Break-Down: Echo Issue 7
Issues of Echo I design for the Paragon Press are among my favorite assignments because the owner, Austin Shay, has essentially granted me creative freedom for these covers. This gives me the opportunity to experiment. Design, much like other trends, is undoubtedly cyclical. Much of today’s graphic design is harkening back to aesthetics from past decades. For this piece, I wanted to not simply create a design with 80’s sprinkled on, but rather dive right into the decade.
This cover is a continuation of a trend of mine as of late. Since I began learning Adobe After Effects a few years ago, I’ve been able to appreciate its usefulness as a graphic design tool. Since these will be published digitally, this makes that approach even more simple. I begin by opening a composition the dimensions of the cover and just, well, go to town.
For this cover, I began with the triangles and text in the center. The triangles were made from paths with Saber applied, a free plugin from Video Copilot that, among other things, would allow you to make a lightsaber! The foreground is simply a grid generated by After Effects and then warped manually. In the back you’ll notice a mountain range which was a 3D model loaded into and colored in Trapcode Form. The background is a combination of a few layers of Trapcode Particular with various colors of particles. I more or less moved the playhead forward and back until I found a pleasing arrangement!
Finally, the sick J.J. Abrams lens flaring was added in Photoshop after the fact, simply because I like the way Photoshop renders lens flares compared to After Effects. I could’ve also used one of the other Red Giant plugins but I haven’t begun to learn that one.
So there you have it! My secret sauce. I enjoy talking about my work and sharing ideas with others, so if you have any questions, always reach out. I think I’ll do some more of these in the future, so come back for more!