I realized the other day that my last few projects have been prophetic to my own life. Before I made the Christmas carol poster, I had wanted to do something based on a big, militant worship song. As I explained, that idea didn’t work. Then, my two final projects – an innocent and happy music video, and what you’re about to see… are also more childlike. These all became a prelude to God showing me His wonderfully tender side.

So without further ado, let me introduce you to a new set of covers for the Chronicles of Narnia series by C. S. Lewis. I requested this project from my teacher, and he kindly acquiesced. If you have read the books, then I invite you to look closely for symbolism in each of the covers. A lot of thought was put into them! If you click on a cover, a PDF of that  book jacket will open. Some of the files are large, so be patient.

Book One

My brother Noah is the model for this cover, which was not governed by any assignment criteria.

Book Two

This cover responds to the assignment prompt, “design with maximum economy.” No more is shown than what is necessary to communicate the concept.

Book Three

This cover was designed after a historical style, namely the Bayeux Tapestry.

Book Four

The cover for Prince Caspian was designed in the style of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and his famous poster of Aristide Bruant.

Book Five

Another free-style cover. The words make the shape of the dragon’s prow over abstracted islands.

Book Six

This cover was created after Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s distinctive style.

Book Seven

This final cover employs graphic abstraction to communicate the concept.

This Design Layout assignment was a poster of song lyrics, using any kind of grid we wanted. The song that I originally wanted to do – Between the Cherubim by Misty Edwards – was not working for me. It should have been amazing… but even after a week of tweak it was not in any way presentable.

So the day before the poster was due, I switched themes completely and got into the Christmas spirit. This is an obscure carol, but a beautiful one. I dig the Old English phrasing, and thank Mom and Dad for having such a classy Christmas music collection while I was growing up!

Class | Design Layout

Assignment | Design a concert poster and accompanying ticket.

Inspiration | Modest Mussorgsky’s Pictures in an Exhibition (1874) is a piece that I really enjoy for its varying emotional hues… it’s like Saint-Saëns’ Carnival of the Animals grown up.

Mussorgsky’s good friend and artist Viktor Hartmann died suddenly from an aneurysm in 1873. The sudden loss of the artist shook Mussorgsky along with others in Russia’s art world. An exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works was organized in the Academy of Fine Arts in St Petersburg. After attending the exhibiton, Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition in six weeks. The piece is organized to evoke a tour of an art gallery, and each movement is based on one or more of Hartmann’s works. Read even more

My challenge was to translate the musical concept back into a visual expression appropriate to a concert poster.

Behind the Scenes | I began with the all-important step of recording ideas with small sketches.

	In this idea, each square represents a movement of the piece. Simple colors and texture evoke the mood of each part.		Here, a portion of a gallery wall, with a brochure stand where the title goes. M’s name is stamped into the floor, as if to say that he once stood there.
	An architectural view from above. Little glows of color emit from spots on the walls to represent the inspiration that M feels in front of certain pictures.		Looking down a long corridor of the gallery rooms with doorframes in perspective. Title and composer written on the floor.
	Same as before, but with words popping out from behind each doorframe.		Inspired from a photo of Collin in Lacoste, France, M stands looking at pictures.
	Same, but M is now standing in a depressed floor tile. Metaphorical.		Reflecting while genuflecting.
	More of same.		The close-up emo idea. Title etc. is over the forehead.
	Pure type. I just realized I misspelled his name, because I was so excited about the ear on my lowercase g.		This idea excited me – it’s a 3d box unfolded (not a scorpion) with a musical score on the walls. So it conceptually combines space and sound.
	Similar, a close-up, this time a box pattern that would actually fold into a gallery-looking space.

Four of these I chose to turn into roughs, which were critiqued by other students and the teacher before I started on a final version.

I gave up on the top two, mostly because of my inability to illustrate what I was imagining in my mind. The only redeeming part of the top right one was my discovery of a good engraving technique for text,* which I ended up using it in my final product. The bottom left option was working fine; I just hadn’t taken time to come up with all of the interpretive thumbnails yet.

It was the the bottom right one captured me, however, begging me to perfect it! I had accidentally happened upon a quiet, whitewashed look that reminded me  of vintage picture books that I grew up with. Plus, the architectural illusory nature always appeals to me.

After very useful critique and revision, I ended up with a final product. Although I conceptually miss the words “popping out” from behind walls, this seems to be the best compromise of quirk and readability. My favorite part is definitely the subtlety of the floor and the Didot typeface engraved in it.

And then I made the accompanying ticket. Considering the logistical details thereupon, I realize that this concert takes places in some kind of strange transatlantic context… but hey, that’s where I live.

* Engraving: I created two identical shapes (text). The back shape is a darker brown and has a Multiply blend mode. The front shape is a lighter brown with a Soft Light blend mode and nudged slightly down and to the left.

MINE

THEIRS

I’m not real impressed with this… I couldn’t find a painting of Chagall’s that had a lot of negative space. The negative space is what really makes the original one spectacular. I did have fun with transparency and trying to put important info in the “line of sight.”

And then for the second designer of my choice, I read up on Edward Tufte. His work, while not flashy, is amazing! I have one of his books checked out from the library right now.

Edward Tufte critiques the iPhone

PDF version

This first layout is tongue-in-cheek to comment on the idea of the news as entertainment, edited to appeal to readers.

The second contains the same content, but doesn’t push the concept to the extent above.

And finally, au revoir sarcasm/Helvetica et bonjour vintage fashion magazine.

This is my first ever attempt at using type to imitate an object, and I love how it turned out!
We were asked to create a type-based graphic to incorporate into simple layout exercises. Download a .pdf of this project