From the brief: “Rescued from the earth-covered runs of the ancient City at six years old, Tye Ilan entered society deeply and permanently handicapped -- he lacked language. But something in the City had infected him, and now a new generation as well, and as the world grappled with those new beings, able to wield music to move the world around them, Tye found himself buffeted into the center of the struggle for what comes next, after humans.”

Below is the first sketch I did. I liked the fact that the “0” was putting the emphasis on the brain but aside from the fact that the figure is not the right age it was looking more like a non-fiction title.

Illustration for a story about a jewish basketball league.

I was doing some archiving on my computer and came across this sketch I did for the paperback edition of Committed. It almost made it to the finish line but they went in another direction in the end. The cover references this quote from the book "A fish and a bird may indeed fall in love, but where shall they live?" Below are the original source images.

New York Times - Sunday Review.

Illustration in this month’s O Magazine. How green is your house.

This was my first stab at an illustration for an article on election reform.

The AAUP (American Association of University Presses) Book, Jacket and Journal Show just announced their selected entries for 2012. Here are the covers of mine that got it.

My ode to the 1970's hubcap. One of the stories in this collection features a clown at the annual Southeastern Michigan Clown Convention.

For this cover I changed the background inside the silhouette to show more of a winter scene based on some feedback from the Violent World of Parker blog. The motel sign was finessed as well.

This one is ready to go now. It will be matte lamination overall with spot varnish on yellow paint.

These are some exploratory ideas for a fashion retailer's catalogue. The brief was to include a butterfly in some way. The bottom one shows front and back cover.

Off to the printer

O Magazine

The one below is the actual cover. The other one (sea serpent) was an also ran.

From the brief: The notion that each person is the free author of his thoughts and actions, rests on a cognitive and emotional illusion. The red cover is the final one. The author suggested the idea of somehow using marionette strings and luckily the title had just the right number of letters in each word. Two preliminary ideas are below.

Every designer has at least one old-style/poster type only cover. I guess this is mine.

Just finished the third one in this series.

From the back of my book shelf

Fresh from the printers

I didn't really think they would go for a real heart on the cover but I gave it a shot. The book chronicles a father's experience with his infant son's serious heart disease. In the end we went with a 3D rendering by the illustrator Jeannie Saylor who was nice enough to let us use it on the cover.

Illustration for NY Times Magazine

From the brief: “Sumptuary laws in 17th century France were the legislated rules that determined what a person was permitted to wear according to his or her social rank. Capitalism exercises the same kind of absolutism, dictating the polarities of rich and poor, luxury and necessity, splendour and squalor.” This is a poetry cover.

From the brief: "According to legend, Achilles used the plant yarrow during the Battle of Troy to help treat wounds. This is how the poet is using the plant in her title: to treat the wound of mortality."