David Drummond

Catamount April, 29

One of the benefits of living on the US border is that the Adirondacks are literally in your backyard. Probably should have been working but it was such a beautiful day.

The Summit

Just wrapped this one up. Misandry for those who don't know, including me when I was briefed on this, is the hatred of men.

This cover took a couple of kicks at the can before we settled on the this one. It falls into that category of solutions where once you come up with it you say that it can't possibly be that simple and direct - can it?

Enter the Chrysanthemum

Fiona Tinwei Lam

Even though I have baked a lot of loaves of bread in my life I still get the same thrill each time I open the oven and see finished product. The same is true for book covers. I just received this in the mail. The poet sent me a video of her reading one her beautiful poems - Chrysanthemum.

This one was a tough one. Paraphrasing the author: The thesis of the book is that a distinction can be made between two types of objects: one (objects of natural science) can sustain magnification; the other (objects typical of humanistic inquiry) cannot. This means that humanistic inquiry cannot match scientific inquiry. Because the objects of natural science permit magnification, we can dissect them into smaller and smaller pieces, each time discovering new, important information about them. Cultural objects, such as a photograph, will not yield to microscopic study - we generate noise, not signal.

I will admit it is kind of an odd image but I thought it made for an intriguing cover.

The brief for this cover was to somehow convey the sense that the book is a really a conversation between two philosophers. The cover with the two chairs is the approved version.

stock image

approval pending

Do you think there is an unwritten law in graphic design that you can't put a tapeworm on the cover of a book?

Fall 2009 catalogue cover

I love doing catalogue covers. Because they are more ephemeral than book covers you can push the limits a little further.

Thurston is one of Canada's best know nature poets. I added in the tree branches on the edge at the last minute. I was actually closing up the file when I accidentally deleted one of the of masks from another concept that I didn't present and the tree branches overlapped onto this sketch. I really like it when these kind of accidents occur. It makes you stop and look at things in a new way. I posted the other sketch that the branches came from below.

The Watch that Ends the Night

There was no budget for stock photography on this one so I shot it myself. I ran over to a friends house this morning to photograph his canoe strapped to the roof of his barn. I borrowed his lovely daughter Vanessa's hand made paddle and asked my daughter to photograph me from above in a paddling position. As I said in an earlier post this cover really resonates with me. I spent many hours canoeing in the Laurentians when I was growing up. One of my father's many gifts to me was the art of paddling a canoe.

Anatomy of a cover

This is a recently approved cover for a poetry book. Boxing the compass refers to the ability to memorize all 32 points on a compass. It also refers to the action of a rudderless boat which will eventually rotate in a full circle hitting all the points on a compass. The title poem deals with a father on his death bed.

Note that this is just the sketch so it is still a little rough.

So I wait with you in a crowded dark
where ageing men must revive or perish,
and wonder, my father, what under morphine
your dreams are? The old man on his ship’s deck
and you a boy among the ropes and canvas –
that hour’s sunlight over all the days you’ve seen.

I thought it would be interesting to present a small boat on the cover which also resembled a coffin. For my first sketch I actually took an image of a coffin and put in on water. It was interesting but there was something not quite right about it. It needed to be more ambiguous and the water didn't look right for Newfoundland. I found another image of an actual boat that struck the right balance.

Approval pending. These kind of subjects present their own challenges. How can you say something original about a subject that has been so exhaustively mined for visual ideas.

Approval pending.

This one proved tougher than most. It is a novel about a dystopian future where livestock have become extinct. The final chosen solution is the one with the broken plate. I added the cows into the design. I think the problem with a cover like this is that when you try and approach the subject matter head on it doesn't work. The trick is to find a lateral way to approach it leaving more to the imagination of the viewer. I really liked the option with the fence and the partially obscured "i", but it was maybe a little hard to decode. A bit of a homage to Paul Rand.

Have you ever seen a more conflicted looking war hero? The book is about a French-Canadian soldier who is awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest military decoration of the British Commonwealth and is turned into a reluctant hero.

Just coming up for air. What a last couple of weeks!! This is a recent cover I worked on. Not sure it will be accepted but there was something I really liked about it. The book is about risks of globalization for the U.S. These kind of covers are always a challenge. How can you express this in a new way when there has already been so much done on this subject. I went for the world as a fish bowl with the U.S. which oddly enough looks like a gold fish when coloured orange. Maybe I am fixated on dead gold fish which I tried on another cover as well.

Another one in the works. Small format 6 x 6 with the possibility of extra colours or special printing techniques.

AAUP Jacket and Cover Selections 2010

I am working on this one right now. The book deals with the fact that Freud didn't have the benefit of the all the advances that have been made in neuroscience than can now be used to complement analysis. I liked the fact that the brain scanning table resembled an analysts couch. It makes a nice contrast it with a victorian armchair.

Writing Lovers

Méira Cook

Amnesty International

This is a t-shirt design I am working on. The only stipulation is that I have to use the barb wire element from their logo.

Sins of the Flesh

Rod Preece

This cover was one of several that won in the AAUP (Association of American University Presses) book and jacket show. The version on the bottom is the way the cover looked at the final stage of mechanical production. I spent about a day drawing the pig but it just wasn't working. At the eleventh hour I looked for an image in one of my royalty free books of line art and found a new pig. Thankfully the client agreed that it was an improvement. There was a time when those trusted line art books were put to good use as university presses don't usually have budgets for images. I think I will do a future post that just features those covers.

Parker Series

Now there are six.

Judging Obscenity

Christopher Nowlin

This cover is progressing. The first sketch which I posted earlier met with a positive reaction with some caveats. The type treatment and overall feeling was too whimsical for the poetry. I turned up the volume and went for a harder edged feel.

2nd sketch

First sketch presented

Montreal's Best BYOB Restaurants

Joanna Fox

Without trying to over think this one too much, I went for a light hearted, fun approach.

Amassing Power

David Massell

From the back cover: At the turn of the century American industrialist J.B. Duke set his sights on one of North America's greatest and most spectacular rivers - the Saguenay ... to develop, and sell its tremendous hydroelectric potential. I was given a stack of photos to work with and this one of Duke in a bowler hat jumped out at me. The curve of his hat and a curve in the famous river.

Another one in this ongoing series. Because showing a specific national currency wouldn't work, the problem became how do you show money without showing it?