The Life of Catherine "Kitty" Shubrooks
As a gift to my great-grandmother on her 100th birthday, my sister and I wrote a short biography about her. In the span of two months, we collected photos, memorabilia, and researched her life, then compiled it into a book to give to her and everyone she knows. We wanted to give her a gift that told her story and let her know how much of an inspiration she truly is to everyone around her.
Project
Specifications
Biography (8.5"x11" book)
Time Spent: 2 months
Software: Photoshop, Indesign
Cover Design
The cover design was meant to be simple. We chose a photo of Catherine where she was not too young and was unrecognizable to people she only knew in her later years. But we also didn't want to use too current of a photo. The quote on the back was to show how she views her ever-growing age as not a bad thing. The color purple was chosen simply because it is Catherine's favorite color.
Memorabilia
Catherine made full page on a newspaper for her missionary work and wrote testimonies about her hardships. We wanted it to include any original documents we had to fully show all she accomplished. We also wanted to include some letters she had written because she had over 80 penpals she would write to almost every day.
Photo Restoration
We asked everyone Catherine knew to send us any photos they had of her. This lead to tons of photos to sort through. Many of them were old, damaged, or washed out but we wanted to include most of the photos people had given us. There were about 200 photos given and we used about 170.
I went through editing the older photos in Photoshop to bring them back to their original state (or as close as I could get them). Some of the photos were easy, but others were redwashed or faded to the point where many adjustments had to be made.
Before
After
Timeline
Catherine has lived an entire century. We wanted to include a timeline of all the major events she lived through with a brief description of what was happening in her life at the time.