Sketches: Melchior A La Carte

One more for now. Sometimes, my ideas are not quite so fully formed, and I'll do two or three (or more!) thumbnail sketches to sort out ideas, on how and where type and photos or illustrations might be placed...

My original idea, to compensate for the lack of color images (and for the poor quality of many of the black-and white photographs) was to apply a subtle, but different color treatment to each of them.

But that didn't seem to go over as well as I'd hoped with the author, so I went in a different direction, one that was more simple and bold, based on a suggestion of his.


Now I think I ought to get back to work...

Sketches: Just When You Thought It Was Safe

For another book, this one on the series JAWS films, I wanted to try something unusual and fun with the design. But there are certain limitations: the interior pages are in black-and-white, and everything must fit within specific margins, rather than reaching to the edge of the page. I did a series of thumbnail sketches for the chapter break pages, some of which you'll see below...

Having settled on an idea that I thought could work, I put together a sample page to see how it might look in print. But I had lingering doubts about the legibility of the text, and how the various shades of grey might reproduce on press. In the end, I decided to avoid those questions entirely by staying in black and white (and starting the text on a following page).





You might have noticed that the shark rises slowly toward the top of the page as the book progresses — which is, of course, meant to evoke that iconic image from the cover of the book and poster of the film. I'm not sure how obvious this will be to someone reading the book (most of these pages will be 50-60 pages apart, after all), but I thought it would be amusing, just the same.

From there, the direction I wanted to take with the cover seemed obvious, though I still did a quick sketch to distill my ideas for the back cover...

And this was the result.

Sketches: My Magic Carpet Of Films

I prefer to put pen to paper for my design concepts, before I sit down in front of my computer. There are virtually endless possibilities in digital design — but I find it helpful to focus a bit, narrow down my ideas, and sort of block out the shapes and forms, to avoid spending too much time wandering off down dead ends. I suppose this a habit that remains from having spent time in the world before digital design, where waxed galleys of type and photostats of images were pasted up on ruled boards over a light table, and it all seemed so much more labor-intensive, somehow.

Sometimes, I'll go into the process with a very clear and well-defined idea of what I want to do. Here's a sketch I started with on Sunday...

You probably won't be able to read the notes I've scribbled on the side — those are the colors I wanted to use (red, brown, gold, black, yellow), for the sort of flavor I felt the cover should have. This was the end result, several hours later...

It wasn't exactly as I had planned (I really didn't have any real concept of the back cover, so I went off in a different direction, and I chose slightly different photos for the front) but the structure and color treatment remain more or less the same.

(By the way, that "FPO" over the UPC code is short for For Position Only, as the information in that box was placed there temporarily.)

Why I Love Pre-Code Hollywood

As I write this, I'm watching a favorite film — The Purchase Price, from 1932, directed by William Wellman.

How's this for a plot: nightclub singer Joan Gordon (played by Barbara Stanwyck) breaks off her relationship with a married gangster in order to marry a man from a good family ― only to discover that the family has had her investigated and has discovered her dubious associations. Her hopes dashed, she flees to Montreal, with the gangster in pursuit. Seeking escape, when she learns that the hotel maid has used her picture to meet a man through a matrimonial service, Joan decides to take her place. She travels to North Dakota and marries a farmer (played by George Brent) she's never met, and must build a relationship with him while they face the hardships and difficulties of farm life.

And that's just to set up the story ― all of this seems to take place in the first ten minutes or so, and the film carries along at a brisk pace (as is the case with many films from this era), at just over an hour long. (You can watch the trailer for The Purchase Price here.)

If that sounds like an unusual premise, it's positively tame by comparison to another Barbara Stanwyck film ― Baby Face, released the following year. In it, she plays a woman who uses sex to entrap and control men as she climbs out of poverty to a penthouse apartment. Believe me, it's every bit as provocative as it sounds ― you can imagine how it might have been received in 1933. (You can see the trailer here.)

Baby Face was rejected by the New York State Censorship Board, which resulted in several of the film's more suggestive scenes being cut before release (along with, oddly enough, a reference to Nietzschean philosophy ― and the suggestion that Stanwyck's character go to the city and use what's she got to get what she wants!). The original, unedited version was presumed lost, until a print was discovered in 2004. (The story of that unexpected discovery, and brief audio clips that demonstrate the sort of changes that had to be made to satisfy the censorship board, can be heard here.)

I'm completely, hopelessly in love with the Barbara Stanwyck of this era. Someone once wrote that "she had that wonderful, undefinable combination of plainness bordering on homeliness and an almost feral sexuality." Sigh.

Unused

This was from the back cover of a book I designed on the film The Fly. The author was keen on having actor David Hedison's cooperation in promoting the book, but this was apparently a very difficult and arduous scene for him (anyone who has seen the film would recognize it immediately), one that left him with only unpleasant memories. The author thought it best not to remind him, so this was never used.

Monday

Monday has been cancelled. Abandon, reckless or otherwise, will have to wait for another day!

Breastfeeding

There's an interesting piece in The Atlantic this month about the relative merits of breastfeeding, which is commonly assumed to be more beneficial than evidence indicates.

I don't particularly care for the tone (it seems bitter and spiteful as an attempt at provocation), though that might be because I've never bought into the supposed politics of motherhood. (Yeah, I know. I'm not a mother.) Don't misunderstand me, I've no issue with breastfeeding — I'm sure the benefits are of a more intimate, less tangible sort — but I'm always curious to see popular wisdom debunked.