In this assignment, you had to capture the feel and look of an old paperback set in a noir setting. I figured this was a perfect assignment for my created character of Buck because he is a law enforcement official that also has the title of detective.

To complete this assignment, I opened up the Sketchbook App on my computer and tried to make a cover reminiscent of the examples that were given for noir/pulp covers. I wanted a black and white cover because when I think of anything noir themed, I always thought of it in black and white. To attain that goal I looked up black and white photos that were filled with darkness to give the cover a mysterious look that is needed for a detective noir novel cover. After I found a black and white picture of an alleyway, I found an image of black cowboy silhouette resting against a wall. Then I pasted both images into the Sketchbook app and tried to crop the plain white background from the cowboy silhouette. That turned out to be the toughest part of the assignment, because it made the rest of the picture look odd. All I could do was my best at trying to hide it within the photo, so I just made it a shade of grey to match with the black and white of the cover. The last thing that I had to do for the assignment was put the title and my name onto the cover. I looked at all the other examples again, and then picked the font which I felt captured the mysterious theme of a noir cover. After writing the title of the Unexpected because it goes with my character’s nickname, I typed my name below the title in a matching font to signal that I was the author of the book.

Overall, I enjoyed designing a noir/pulp cover for this assignment and I like the result of it. I feel that my cover captures the look and theme of a noir/pulp cover that would show up as an old paperback.