Borders Up

So I was planning on doing the baby blue and gold color scheme for everything and I've already designated the background to be blue, but I have not yet decided what I wanted to be yellow on the cover. I was originally thinking a yellow border around the entire cover, but I think that alludes more to National Geographic's signature hollow rectangle as seen literally all over their website. So, when I hit this dilemma I immediately thought alpona or mehindi designs around the border would be perfect for the situation.

Think of an eye catching motif like the Nat Geo covers but with a design instead of a gold border:

Alright so I asked my sister what alpona called in English, and she said the closest thing is henna. Henna designs are actually really popular in the United States and they are basically drawn temporary tattoos. What most people don't know is that these designs are also used in fashion design, painted in various forms of art, and even carved into Indian furniture. These line drawing designs are signature to West/South Asia and will be perfect for my gold borderlines.

My dad is an artist and I asked him to draw a draft of what a border could be for the cover and another friend, who did this project last year was keen on including a very helpful tutorial in her blog. This tutorial explains how to convert ink blotches into the program to use as designs. I can manipulate the same concept to convert drawings into the program to use as a high quality border. With this tutorial, I think I will have to use Photoshop to create the colors and flowing style that I want in these border designs. At least for the cover that is.

References

Explore 130 Years of National Geographic Covers in Just Two Minutes. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.gizmodo.co.uk/2018/01/explore-130-years-of-national-geographic-covers-in-just-two-minutes/

How to make a magazine cover [Photoshop & InDesign]. (2015, April 28). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRrsr6CSmnY

National Geographic: Stories of Animals, Nature, and Culture. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/