work in progress



A book of poetry about motherhood and loss.

The clock ran out on this one but here is a bit more background on the process. At about the 23rd hour I showed an earlier version to my wife before she left for work, and her first comment was "bullet holes". They are supposed to be sledge hammer holes in a wall. I kind of scrambled with only an hour to go and decided to add in a baseboard to give the holes more of a sense of scale. I think showing floorboards would help in this regard as well. I added them in here after the fact. I was going for a similar view of a room as in the Kierkegaard cover I did a while back.





I was working from the only good image I could find of holes in a wall.

30 Covers, 30 Days

As part of National Novel Writing Month John Gall asked 30 designers and illustrators to design covers for some of the works in progress. The only stipulation was that each design had to be done in 24 hours from reading the brief to supplying finished cover.
This is my contribution. Clocked in at 22 hours 45 minutes and 16 seconds. Here is a link to their site.

This is a gallery of all the covers done so far.

Men’s Health Illustration

Final cover for this book of poetry with initial sketch below. The bottom one didn't convey the right aesthetic for the book. It had to be more playful and generative. From the brief: the poems are hyper-kinetic and have a lot of word-play, colour, speed and attitude.

This is a preliminary idea for the poetry cover below. The idea came from something the editor said - The title basically acts a warning to the reader. It says that the poet isn't to be trusted.

From the brief: the poet's metaphors see perception as a trick, and try to uncover the magician's secret. Everything revolves around the shortfalls of perceiver and perceived.

The editor suggested coming up with a pattern with a twist.

From the brief: the Lebanese civil war is an important part of this story, we would like to focus on the six year old boy Niko. The story begins in Lebanon but then spans 7 countries.

The first option with the tricycle was rejected because it made the boy seem too young. The author suggested showing the boy looking through chicken wire from his balcony.

From the Pentagram website. Design quotes to live by.