Sketches: Zappp!

I'm still not sure how this is going to work out. This was one of those projects where I had nothing to work with but a title, and really not much more to go on than instinct. And that's great, that opens up lots of opportunity, but in this case it meant spending lots of time essentially working on spec, and given past experience, I was (or I should have been) hesitant to do that.

Most of the time was spent learning the ins and outs of Adobe Illustrator, which I've used off-and-on for more than a decade, but never enough to feel really, truly comfortable with it. (I used to use Freehand.) I think I have a better sense of it than I did (and I really don't have much choice at this point, I don't think I even have a copy of Freehand that still works), but it doesn't seem as intuitive.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to approach the "telescoping" shadow of the letters. I knew I wanted it to be subtle — in some cases, not even there — and organic, rather than mechanical, so that meant lots of tinkering to achieve just the effect I wanted. I don't know that I'm settled on this just yet (I think it may be too subtle), but I'm not sure I want to put more work into this without some confidence that the project will indeed go forward.

I s'pose it defeats the purpose when I show the cover before the sketch — but there really isn't all that much to show.


(And yes, that is indeed the same typeface I used on the cover of the last cover I designed, Egiziano Classic Black. I loves me a big ol' slab serif.)

Dodsworth

Mary Astor has always left me kinda cold. Not cool, not reserved, but cold. (If you were to take Myrna Loy, and remove every last bit of sex appeal from her? You'd have Mary Astor.) I dunno, she just seems to lack an essential vulnerability and warmth I've found in most other actresses of the 1930s, even in similar roles. Those qualities that seemed so perfect for a "scheming temptress" in The Maltese Falcon didn't serve her as well in other films, at least not the ones I've seen. But I knew if I waited long enough I'd find Mary Astor in a genuinely sympathetic role where she was really well-suited.

Parental Controls

I know, sooner or later, my son is going to find something on the Internet he probably shouldn't see. (Not yet, anyway.) But I hadn't expected him to take an interest in major surgery at nine years old.

Sketches: Inside the Changing Circus

This is what comes of procrastination. No, really — I had something else I put off doing this morning, and I did this, instead.


It sprang fully-formed from the sketch, more or less...


The title is set in a big ol' slab serif face, because I wanted to evoke the wood type I might expect to see on a circus poster — but I wanted it to appear more modern, not quite so literal. That said, though, I had been thinking that the cover might look more like a traditional poster — black or red type on a light paper background, something like that — but I felt that the dark background would hold the photographs better.

I decided to have the three "rings" overlap a bit, with the hope that it might allow the circles to be slightly larger. Putting photos into a circular frame, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, but it can be a real challenge to try to find photos to fit odd shapes like the circles at the edges. That list of numbers, on the right, those are notes on the photos I thought might work best. (I still have to replace one of them on the back cover, at the request of the Author.)