amomentsindulgence:

Jane Austen minimalist posters

theotherausten:

xsounprettyx:

its a nice story and all. Two people who love each other end up together is always nice, but what some people fail to realize about the main couple is, THEY ARE FIRST COUSINS!

That is incest people.  I get it, those were the times and all, but come on, INCEST!

Its a lovely story, but yeah. I’ll skip this romantic tale.

yeah, but Edmund was Fanny’s first cousin. so like, you have your second cousins, and then your first cousins, and then your cousins!!

silvestria:

thekitchenknight:

Day Twenty of 30 Day Book Challenge: Book turned into a movie and completely desecrated

Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

As you can see, I didn’t care for either of these adaptions (though I might not go so far as to say they were a desecration). The first was a charming film but simply not Mansfield Park. If anything, it was an alternate retelling in which the names of the cast remain the same but the characters themselves are completely changed. The second stayed much more true to the book but still managed to fall flat. In spite of the excellent cast, it felt vapid and vacant. 

I think that both of these films missed the mark not because of poor acting or low production quality, but because Mansfield Park is not a work that lends itself easily to film adaptions at all. It is the least popular of Austen’s books and also perhaps the hardest to understand; rewarding when it is read, but confusing when it is interpreted and altered. 

Agreed (though I think you’re too kind on the 2007 version- the only good thing about that IMO was Hayley Atwell). The only adaptation that comes close to capturing the book is the 1983 version and that has the usual problems of an 80s adaptation - slow, wordy, looks faded now…

Mansfield Park is a complex book and what it isn’t is a romantic love story between Fanny and Edmund. This seems to be a concept that film makers absolutely cannot grasp. The romantic elements are all the bits that go wrong - Fanny>Edmund, Edmund>Mary, Henry/Maria, Julia>Henry, Henry>Fanny. It’s a seething melting pot of unrequited love and sexual tension - very modern in many ways - but what it isn’t is a linear story of a hero and heroine falling in love. So obviously if you make that the subject of a film you’re either going to have to change the plot and characters (1999 film) or just fall flat on your face (2007).

THESIS THESIS THESIS EXPECTATIONAL TEXTS THESIS THESIS THESIS

theotherausten:

“Oh! do not attack me with your watch. A watch is always too fast or too slow. I cannot be dictated to by a watch.” - Mary Crawford

omg Jane Austen is everywhere

quotingausten:

“I care neither what they say nor what they feel. They will now see what sort of woman it is that can attach me, that can attach a man of sense.”

I ship Henry and Fanny. I ship it hard.

So did Jane’s publisher brother. And other family members.

theotherausten:

sapientia-stulti:

Emma is all pastels, light colors, incredibly soft, without anything dark to mar it. And very very fluffy.

Pride and Prejudice is jewel tones, dark greens and purples with perhaps a sudden dash of bright color to add interest.

Persuasion is dark colors (especially reds), that have faded well with age with just a hint of a rosy hue on the edges.

Mansfield Park is simple, drab colors, off-whites and washed out colors.

Sense and Sensibility is half bright colors, pinks and purples and yellows, and half serviceable colors, deeper blues and greens. The two halves battle it out and the blues and greens win in the end.

Northanger Abbey is a simple yellow with fantastic black accents that don’t quite seem to fit.

JANE AUSTEN AND SYNESTHESIA

circles90:

For anyone who loves Period Dramas, here’s my new video. Let me know what you think!

Meaning my heart.

And you put so much happy into 45 seconds. OH. MY. GOD.

vanilladaiquiri:

Jane Austen Series Book Covers Evaluation

And so I have finally come to finish my Jane Austen book covers and what hard, hard work it was. Designing book covers certainly was not something I imagined enduring endless sleepless nights for but there’s a first time for everything after all, and on a positive note, I think I managed to pull this one off pretty nicely.

My initial designs were based heavily on 18th and 19th Century women’s clothing accessories and the wallpaper from various eras. However, for the Rob Ryan style papercuts that I had planned, this was too much to ask for a 2 week project. Instead I chose to go for something more minimal which was actually more befitting of my brief. The books have been redesigned so many times that coming up with something really unique and innovative was a real challenge. I figured through my research that the books were failing to attract the market of young adults and so I chose this as my audience. Choosing a target market early on in the project helped me narrow down my ideas considerably and I felt this helped manage my time and stages in a more constructive way. I chose not to incorporate the wallpaper theme as I realised this is what made a lot of the books look dated and so I stuck with the idea of accessories. Looking at past designs, I felt the illustration techniques that had been used were not particularly attractive and certainly would not attract me as a young female. I needed a quirkier way of portraying the imagery and that is how I became accustomed with paper cutouts.

My initial plan was to research the particular accessory that was ‘in’ in the decade the book was set, put the patterns together in to one new design, create a vector on Illustrator and then hand cut the designs. After my first attempt with the fan for Emma which took two whole days of cutting, I realised that I needed to pour my focus in to creating the designs digitally and then have the designs cut out by a laser cutter. I am really happy with the designs and I feel they represent the decades that the books were set in. Coursemates of mine suggested that they gave a real insight as to how the women would have dressed and accessorised in that time, something they felt the past designs for Jane Austen had not done. This was positive feedback and I was also urged to photograph each image on different coloured paper as opposed to having different block colour backgrounds with white showing through.

After receiving mixed feedback in my critique, I then went off to create the designs and photographed the shadows of the cut outs and also the cut outs on different papers and colours to see the effect once the images had been digitally processed. I began editing the images on Photoshop to find the best ways of creating the dynamic aspect through print. This was quite a demanding technique to master and it took a couple of days of trial and error to get that crisp cut out finish once the images were printed. A problem I had which required a lot of attention was the fact that the shadows were not printing out as sharp as the photography. This meant I had to digitally enhance the shadow to create the same effect in print as on the screen. Ultimately, I was very happy with how these turned out and I feel the individual basic colour schemes help to separate my designs from previous book designs. 

Realising that my target market would not want to be carrying embossed cloth bound hard back books round with them, helped me choose a realistic book dimension. I chose to go for a pocket paperback as this would perhaps encourage my audience to buy the books and take them on holiday or perhaps on their breaks at work. I did consider adding a fancy touch to them by creating cut out sleeves for the books but after consulting my peers, this steered away from the clean cut simplicity which worked so well on these books. I did attempt one sleeve to see what it would look like realistically and this is something I would have wanted to experiment with more had I had more time. I may go back to this as I feel it is an important aspect to consider when including this work in my portfolio.

As far as typography goes, I looked at a lot of script fonts which were far too font like and did not serve the purpose of a classy, illustrated book cover. I found various typefaces that worked well but after trying these out on my I realised I would need to cut out my lettering as well as my imagery to complete and really emphasise the cut out effect. This narrowed down my typeface choices considerably, however it meant I had more work on my hands, and again cutting out the book names and the author required a lot of hand labour. My tutor did emphasis how much this helped really ‘make’ my work and in hindsight I realise this was a decision which has brought the standard of my work up a notch. Again, more time would have allowed me to cut out the words more precisely and I would have achieved a cleaner piece of work.

After looking at my research, I had originally considered creating patterns or actual wallpaper from my work but when I began to attempt this, though it did look fabulous, I realised I was ultimately copying the previous designer’s work. Once I started playing around with the images, I realised how strong the image was in it’s own right and I began to experiment with looking at it from different angles. I ended up placing one object across the whole book spread and this worked for a number of benefits. Firstly, it allowed for more colour to show through the cut out sections and secondly, it changed the semiotics of the image from the front and back cover as the image was split. Instead of seeing the image as a whole, seeing only parts of it, i.e. the patters, it changed the whole viewing aspect and the audience would take other things from the image as well as the overall object. Patterns and colours evoke feelings and I think is something that is very hard for a book cover to do all though this is one of it’s main purposes and functions.

As a set I think the books work beautifully yet there are still a number of tweaks that need to be made and minor adjustments to be considered before I mount these covers for hand in and photography. I will be printing the covers on an ivory, heavy weight card. I would also like to print my work through an ink-jet printer as opposed to the in house laser printer as tests show that the shadows and crisp quality is released better through the ink-jet printer. The colours still need considering as they are still the Victorian dull I was going for but not yet bright enough to show a broad colour scheme that should work very well in the set against the ivory background.

Look at them all….

fiercedandelioness:

One of my women’s studies professors told our class on multiple occasions that telling women’s stories was the first and one of the most fundamental parts of feminism. That women have been erased from the narrative for so long, the first step to equality is simply to tell…

theotherausten:

betterbooktitles:

Reader Submission: Title and Redesign by Henry Schenker

Jane Austen: Mansfield Park

Haha oh dear, poor Mansfield Park, or rather poor reader who is missing out!

I finished it..

fuckyeahcravatsandpetticoats:

I’M GLAD YOU THINK SO WELL OF ME, FANNY.

These are really the best thing on my dash right now.