Cover Love Etcetera

Wall Work

2011-12-30T16:21:00.004-05:00

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A great thing about the internet that I very much appreciate is its ability to document my work when I'm too busy or lazy to do it myself. These are photos of some large format mixed media artwork from a 2008 show shot by the talented Jody Sugrue. They originally appeared on her excellent (but now defunct?) art/design/culture blog site eatingsandwiches.com. I miss these paintings so I'm grateful Jody made a record of them.

Alternates and Never-Was Designs From the Archives

2011-12-22T10:51:00.021-05:00

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Deep into the 11th hour the publisher did a 360 and we ended up going back to the drawing board on the cover for this fun book project. (2002)

This book’s title ended up changing to Rust and Bone and we wound up going in a very different direction. (2005)

I just couldn't make this one happen. (2006)

Unfortunately the Madonna project went on permanent hiatus. (2005)

This great little novel changed publishers (Arsenal Pulp Press) and was released in 2000. (1999)

This job was anything but heavenly. (2009)

Even though the general consensus was to steer clear of using an actual cockroach I just couldn’t resist! (2008)

The 2011 Coupe Annual. Get ’em while they’re hot!

2011-11-04T14:19:00.003-04:00

http://www.coupe-mag.com/

Body of Work

2011-11-02T19:11:00.006-04:00

Last winter I designed the packaging for Andy McGuires fantastic new alt folk album, Body of Work.A couple CDs arrived in the post today and they look great! Kudos to the printer whoever you are.
And bonus, Andy is planning to press some vinyl in the coming months. It’s a rare treat these days to get the opportunity to design a record sleeve.

Curious

2011-10-25T16:25:00.001-04:00

Countdown

2011-10-19T14:09:00.002-04:00

The Antagonist

2011-10-08T10:20:00.005-04:00

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The final cover of the 2011 Giller shortlisted The Antagonist and some earlier proposals.

Coupe Party!

2011-10-05T13:59:00.002-04:00

Why Not?

2011-09-21T13:10:00.004-04:00

From the synopsis: Shortly after completing his sixth novel, Ray Robertson suffered a depression of suicidal intensity. Soon after recovering, he felt compelled to try and answer two of the biggest questions we can ask. What makes humans happy? And what makes a life worth living?

Much of Ray’s struggles with depression, it turns out were attributed to his debilitating bouts with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, a disease he was diagnosed with over twenty years ago.

Using this information as inspiration I rigidly arranged 15 black dots, 3 rows of 5 dots each, on a tight grid representing the 15 reasons to live that Robertson chronicles in the book. The last row of 5 dots breaks formation to form a subtly hopeful smile. One of the dots here is replaced by a vinyl record, a quiet wink and a nod to Ray’s unabashed love of music and one of his life’s simple little joys of spinning vinyl.

Why Not? was just nominated for the inaugural Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize.

Barn Sale in Bobcaygeon

2011-07-23T15:30:00.002-04:00

Yep, we’re havin’ a barn sale. For more info head on over to SMALLTOWNBOY.

Short-lived Logo

2011-06-24T13:08:00.005-04:00

Back in '07 I designed the logo for an upstart Toronto-based hi-end burger joint called Craft burger. Last year they decided to change the name to Big Smoke Burger for legal reasons to do with expansion into the US market. They’ve since come up with a generic dumbed down redesign to facilitate the new name. Oh well, I guess logos don’t go on smoking forever!

A Punk Story

2011-06-08T13:44:00.011-04:00

Update (June 30, 2011): This project was just nominated for an ADCC award for Complete Book Design! We’ll see if it wins silver or gold in November.

This was a fun one. I worked on Dirty, Drunk and Punk for over a year and it was almost entirely a blast putting this one together. Dirty, Drunk and Punk is the epically sordid tale of the Bunchofuckingoofs, a seminal Toronto punk band (actually they were more of a gang/movement/cult) in the 80s and 90s that reigned supreme over the legendary downtown neighbourhood of Kensington Market. Author Jenn Morton and Kisha Ferguson have written and documented one crazy twisted story.

Long Lost

2011-05-20T11:05:00.008-04:00

This a little glimpse into a project I worked on about 5 years ago.

A+R, Artist in Residence (originally Artist + Repertoire) was to be a highly visual book/music hybrid project. It was the invention of a group of talented Americans and it sounded extremely promising. Each issue was to feature just one artist or band. It was to be the ultimate super fan must-have. The premiere issue focused on the Icelandic band Sigur Rós. We went on a mini tour with the band (New York City, Atlantic City, snowed out in Cleveland, Toronto) and I compiled a thousand great photos. Long story short, artist politics and demands reared its ugly head. A certain lead singer decided that an art school boyfriend could do a better job with the design and that was pretty much about that.

Some things just aren’t meant to be. Or at least the way you think.

Here are original designs for a proposed Radiohead edition (cover) and a back cover and spreads from the Sigur Rós book.

The Grid

2011-05-14T17:56:00.001-04:00

A little feature here in the premiere issue of The Grid.

Methodist Hatchet

2011-04-11T17:49:00.006-04:00

In book design it’s often best to keep authors a safe distance from the process. Publishers know this to be good practice. As do designers. And even the authors are usually on board. This being said there are of course always exceptions to the rule and occasionally a design author collaboration can have successful results. This I think is one of those exceptions.

When I was hired to come up with a cover for my pal Ken Babstock’s new (and stunning) collection of poetry I eagerly awaited Ken’s thoughts. Poetry, more than any other form of writing, is wide open to personal interpretation so I’m always keen to get the poet’s take.

Ken had come across an image he wanted me to take a look at. A piece by photographic artist Lisa Stinner-Kun. I saw it and I loved it. A line from the book’s catalogue copy reads “Marooned in the shiftless, unnamed space between a map of the world and a world of false maps, these poems cling to what’s necessary from each, yet attempt to sing their own bewilderment.” This sentiment seems to ring out in the image. I love the grid-based carpet that seems to go on forever whose lines emulate those on a globe or map. The evocative mess of ocean blue cable and the manufactured man-madeness and quietude of the photograph felt perfect. Ken also felt that a stacked type treatment for the title featuring odd word breaks was something he would like to see. I’m always game to try a treatment like this since almost every time I do it’s turned down. I experimented with a bunch of type treatments and we eventually settled on this one.

Thanks for the great input, Ken. Your cheque is in the mail.

Coupe 2011 Call For Entries

2011-03-22T10:36:00.003-04:00

This year’s Coupe International Design + Image Competition Call For Entries is good to go! Click on the image here to see an enlargement.

Check it out at the Coupe web site.

Copy Writer: Carlos Irwin Estevez

Punk Teaser

2011-03-09T09:38:00.003-05:00

Filmores

2011-03-01T14:41:00.005-05:00

Five years ago, almost to the day, I went up on the roof of the Filmores Hotel in Toronto, home of the notorious Filmores strip joint. The hotel’s owner Howard Adams had given me the run of the rooftop seven stories high. I was shooting its iconic 20 foot tall sign to be featured in an issue of Coupe documenting the urban typographic landscape of Toronto. I recently revisited the shoot for possible usage on another project and thought I’d pull some of the photos out of storage.

Broken Book

2011-01-21T18:00:00.011-05:00

Everybody needs a little time away.

After a lengthy self-imposed Broken Social Scene hiatus I’ve recently been listening to a lot of the collective’s music again. So, to fill the lull before the spring releases I thought I'd revisit Stuart Berman’s book on the band.

It’s been almost two years since its release and I never did get around to posting anything on the book. Perhaps because the project took on some pretty epic proportions. It was a huge year-long labour but a labour of love. So, for your listening and viewing pleasure here’s the BSS tome (and the project that came close to breaking me a time or two) This Book is Broken.

Hope Burned

2011-01-17T16:20:00.005-05:00

From the synopsis of Brent Laporte’s haunting first novel:

You sit down at the weathered harvest table to write a letter to your son.

You need to explain the horrific events of the night, the circumstances that stained your hands with so much blood — the horrors that led you to take

the lives of your own father and grandfather.

You journey back through darkness, deliberately, tentatively, to recover your own childhood. You compose your captivity, your torture, and the

brutality of the men you’ve just killed. This was life on the farm: the strange and unspeakable things that went on.

And still, hope burned.

I used the combination of my own chicken scratch penmanship knocked out of a dark and dreary photo of the inside of my barn in all it’s creepy glory taken before its slow renovation began last year. I thought it important to use an actual ball point pen (not a brush or quill) to accurately depict the moment in time and mind. The type, although, harkens both the grown man and the childhood being remembered. I carried a hint of the “weathered harvest table” onto the book’s spine. Finally to bring at least a little light of hope to the cover a added a tiny silhouette of a hawk seen soaring in the blue sky above through a missing board in the barn’s hay loft.

Isolation

2011-01-07T08:38:00.004-05:00

Proof that any great design is as much about the space in between.

This is Pete Townshend’s isolated guitar track from The Who’s 1978 release Who Are You.

Hot Off the Press

2010-11-19T10:45:00.003-05:00

We launched the latest issue of Coupe, #22, the International Design Annual a few weeks back. Just now recovering.

You can check out more launch party pics on Facebook.

From the Archives, 2008

2010-11-08T21:02:00.003-05:00

Questions, Questions.

2010-09-30T11:16:00.008-04:00

Update (June 30, 2011): This cover was just nominated for an ADCC award for its cover. We’ll see if it wins silver or gold in November.

Over the past decade I’ve designed jackets and covers for literary pixie and maverick Sheila Heti’s previous books The Middle Stories and Ticknor. Designing for Sheila is always a challenge and a blast. I feel I have to live up to the risk-taking literary nature of her writing. How Should A Person Be? was no different. I found my self substituting Book Cover for Person in the title for my own purposes and inspiration.

The end result combines a black case holding the title and author name in a white stamp and a (little less than) half jacket sporting an unflattering and telling snapshot of Sheila and Margaux, the main characters in the novel. The image obsessively repeats over and over. The jacket sitting at the base of the book obscures Sheila’s oversized name. In doing so the typography reflects Sheila’s longing for fame and her subsequent struggles with it.

Perhaps speaking to the book’s title, perhaps representing the book’s two main characters, I purposely mismatched the dots over the i’s in Sheila’s name.

Sheila asked if I could somehow create end papers that would harken tacky wallpaper of Miami hotel rooms, linking to an early and important chapter in the book. I researched existing wallpaper and imagery but nothing was quite right so I created this front and back set from scratch. It was the perfect element to tie the whole package together.

A New Yet Rusty Blog

2010-08-30T18:15:00.002-04:00

I’ve recently launched a new blog titled SMALLTOWNBOY about life on the farm. Hope to see you there.

Filmores from The Grand. Toronto

2010-08-08T23:01:00.002-04:00

Bird out of water

2010-07-23T17:16:00.009-04:00

The final design for the often hilarious One Bird’s Choice. The subtitle nicely sums this one up. I needed to find a way of quickly relating the crux of the story while hitting the proper note and being cognizant not alienate too much of the readership by going too alt or indie even though the book has its leanings in that direction. After searching high and low for fitting footwear to represent the books main characters and the perfect welcome mat (a tough find, thanks Walmart) I set up this little still life (shot by Edward Pond). I fashioned a guinea fowl (that's the butt ugly bird on the cover who lives with Iain’s parents on their farm) footprint out of putty and stamped a trail of muddy bird prints leading from the back cover to the welcome mat. A subtle typographic detail; the two little red dingbat dots on either side of the author’s name are meant to represent his parents whereas the red apostrophe in the word Bird’s harkens Iain and the red a connection to the bird.

When I saw this photo of the author Iain Reid I immediately started laughing and chomping at the bit to make a fitting cover out of it. The photo, to me projected a classic portrait of a lost twenty-something in the 21st century. By using the type bar as a blindfold the author was obscured just enough. Plus Iain looked like he had just walked off the set of a Wes Anderson film. The treatment was ultimately deemed too “alternative” but it did lead to some typographic solutions that worked well on the final cover.

Toot, Toot

2010-06-23T21:21:00.007-04:00

In the span of 24 hrs I received notification from Communication Arts that this one made it into their 2010 Design Annual and right on the heels of that news the ADCC informed me that the book had won 3 awards in its show. A couple hours later an email arrived from Applied Arts telling me they had selected it for their annual too. And I didn't even know it had been entered! Pretty nice.

This book was posted in greater detail on this blog back in April.

A horn tooting update: On Nov. 4 the book was awarded 2 Golds and a Silver at the ADCCs.

Annabel

2010-06-07T15:16:00.007-04:00

05.10.2010 update: Annabel has been shortlisted for the Giller Prize! One more step to go!

20.09.2010 update: Today Annabel was longlisted for the Giller Prize! Congrats Kathleen!

From the jacket:

In 1968, into the beautiful, spare environment of remote coastal Labrador, a mysterious child is born: a baby who appears to be neither fully boy nor girl, but both at once. Only three people are privy to the secret — the baby’s parents, Jacinta and Treadway, and a trusted neighbour, Thomasina. Together the adults make a difficult decision: to raise the child as a boy named Wayne. But as Wayne grows to adulthood within the hyper-masculine hunting culture of his father, his shadow-self — a girl he thinks of as “Annabel” — is never entirely extinguished, and indeed is secretly nurtured by the women in his life.

Instead of going the route of human boy/girl imagery I thought it much more visually compelling to take from the rugged and beautiful setting of Labrador and its natural environment using the caribou — a recurring image in the novel — to depict the duality of its main character. Combining elements I used a faded and blurred, almost watery image of a young doe being encroached upon from above by a massive rack of male antlers. But like the book, all is not as it seems. The caribou, you see, is the only member of the deer family in which both male and females grow antlers.

I’ve been questioned at Open Book Toronto

2010-06-06T12:55:00.002-04:00

The Proust Questionnaire.

Insta-Video. Fun For The Whole Family!

2010-05-21T09:30:00.010-04:00

Got a few minutes to spare in your day? Make a video for a great song that never had one.

This took all of 5 minutes to throw together. It's no "Thriller" but here's hoping Ian would have liked it.

The Neighbourhood

2010-05-17T16:49:00.001-04:00

A less shiny Las Vegas

2010-04-01T11:20:00.004-04:00

Photos taken on a recent trip.

COUPE 2010 Call For Entries

2010-03-23T20:53:00.002-04:00

The Good Body re-release

2010-03-15T20:27:00.002-04:00

A Collaboration

2010-03-10T19:00:00.006-05:00

This book, entitled I travelled to India, got bitten by a dog, went back home and got a bunch of rabies shots then flew back to India and ate the country (catchy title huh? I penned that mouthful) is a collaboration between photographer extraordinaire Edward Pond and myself. This book documents Edward’s travels through India and the revered place that food holds in its culture.

2010-03-10T18:53:00.000-05:00

More Spring Poetry, 2010

2010-03-10T14:31:00.003-05:00

More from the “Reject” Heap

2010-03-03T18:56:00.005-05:00

A great book of short stories from 2008. Written from a decidedly male view point this collection speaks of the forbidden, complex world of children acting out half-understood fantasies of adulthood; the familiar, modern world of young couples navigating hairpin emotional turns . . .

I quite liked the bananas design. I liked the way the bunch worked for a short story collection. It also played well with the cheeky title and humourously reflected the maleness of the stories.

But alas . . .

The Farmhouse Excavation

2010-02-28T15:25:00.005-05:00

The new (actually very old) farmhouse — and eventual studio — reno.

This wall's done!

Poetry, Spring 2010

2010-02-24T13:10:00.005-05:00

A recently completed cover design for Michael Lista's Bloom due for release in April 2010.

In May of 1946, on the day of a lunar eclipse, a Canadian physicist named Louis Slotin was in his last hours of work training his replacement on the Manhattan Project. Slotin’s job was to bring a core of nuclear fissile material as close to criticality as possible. This process is known as "tickling the dragon's tail."

The title Bloom refers to an event in which plutonium goes critical, in this case caused by Slotin's error, the slip of the screwdriver.

In his new work of poetry, Bloom, Michael Lista reimagines this fateful day.

Gig Poster

2010-02-08T14:10:00.001-05:00

In An everlasting kiss . . .

Best Covers, 2010

2010-01-05T20:16:00.001-05:00

When the Globe and Mail asked me to create a list of the decade’s ten best book cover designs, my first thought was “Yikes, where do I begin?”. There have been so many great covers created by a legion of talented graphic designers over the last ten years that that to make a definitive list is, of course, an impossibility. So this list is more accurately an arbitrary compilation of some of the decade’s book cover highlights and some of my personal favourites.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/decade/decade-arts/10-innovative-book-covers-from-the-past-decade/article1408704/

Everlong — Grindstone Cowboys

2009-11-25T10:58:00.001-05:00

Proof that even worms poo.

Shriners and Mounties and bears, Oh My!

2009-11-21T15:47:00.001-05:00

CD package for my band The Grindstone Cowboys.

Just for fun.

2009-11-06T11:52:00.000-05:00

Upgraded to Serious

“A brilliantly humorous view of a world falling apart. The poems employ medical terms and metaphors to work through loss and detachment.”

Coupe No. 21 Cover

2009-10-29T13:50:00.000-04:00

The cover of the new issue of Coupe.

Grindstone Poster

2009-10-22T15:47:00.001-04:00

The Carnivore

2009-09-28T16:01:00.000-04:00

Turns out I'm not a very diligent blogger.

Been darned busy with work and fun and some epic, life altering stuff.

A new jacket hot off the press for the nifty novel The Carnivore by Mark Sinnett.

Here's the synopsis:

In October 1954, just as Ray and Mary Townes seem to be establishing the perfect marriage, Hurricane Hazel barrels through Toronto, killing 81 people. Ray, a young cop, is hailed as a hero by the newspapers, for saving several lives from a rampant Humber River, while Mary is a nurse who performs her own small miracles that night. But as the young couple try to resume their life together in a shell-shocked city, Mary begins to doubt her husband’s story. Who is it, exactly, that stares out at her now from the cover of the Globe and Mail? Definitive answers prove elusive, and divisive. And fifty years later, when a reporter comes knocking, wanting to once more revisit and celebrate that violent night, a host of secrets finally surface that threaten to destroy them.

Combining images of a historical photo evoking the era and setting, a detail of classic wallpaper connoting the idyllic dream of marriage in the 1950s, and a slab of protective plywood was almost enough. Almost. A big thanks goes out to my boy Michael Holmes for letting me add the first rain drops of the impending storm in the form of a clear spot varnish.

Spine Out

2009-07-10T12:21:00.000-04:00

A small cross-section from 15 years of book design. Warts 'n all.

Translation

2009-07-03T16:01:00.001-04:00

Rebecca, Born in the Maelstrom is the latest offering from Marie-Claire Blais in her award-winning and beautifully strange series. Think Lost meets Alice in Wonderland meets Apocalypse Now.

When I designed the first installment in this collection it was not clear that it would grow to a trilogy and then beyond that. The challenge with the collection which spans 12 years was to try to maintain a coherent look while updating each separate title to reflect the moment and not look dated or staid. Some elements were carried throughout the series and some were let go but the end result is an organically grown "series" look.

The english edition of Augustino was released in 2007.

The english edition of Thunder and Light was released in 2001.

The english edition of These Festive Nights was released in 1997.

Resurrection

2009-06-27T15:44:00.001-04:00

One of the good things about the internet and blogs in general is that design projects that get killed now have a place to see the light of day.

Case in point, here are 3 covers I designed a few years ago for Michael Winter's most recent novel The Architects are Here. The story, much like my experience working on it's cover design, is an epic journey full of dark humour, tragedy, and death. I worked on the jacket design for a year, a year which started with a quick and unanimous OK for one of my early designs, and ended with a kill fee after 25 total cover designs and an awful lot of frustrations along the way. The greatest frustration was when I saw the dog of a design the publisher eventually stuck Michael and his book with. He and it deserved much better.

Indie·Punk·Typographic·Produce

2009-06-22T16:10:00.003-04:00

Three pieces from a new collection entitled Indie·Punk·Typographic·Produce

launched June 6, 09 at Coupe Space.

This series of seven montages are each 16" x 20". Rebuilt digital prints and tape under glass.

4 sold. 3 remain as of July 2.

2009-06-09T15:12:00.000-04:00

My 2009 contribution to poetry:

Gun Dogs, Pigeon, and Mole (House of Anansi Press)

Always Die Before Your Mother (ECW Press)

And as a bonus this years Canadian winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize,

A. F. Mortitz' The Sentinel (Anansi, 2008). Congratulations Al.

2009-06-08T15:51:00.000-04:00

The final cover design and runners up (runner ups?) for an anthology of some of the best non-fiction writing to emerge from the Literary Journalism Program of The Banff Centre in the past six years. I wanted to keep the design mainly typographic but with just a wee bit of Canadiana thrown in for good measure. I'm kind of glad the "Hudson's Bay Company" colours version wasn't chosen. Never fun being sued.

2009-06-06T10:45:00.000-04:00

Nothing says 'summer time alt. country' like a Johnson.

2009-05-21T15:48:00.000-04:00

From the archives . . .

This was a rather ambitious cover design for issue 14 of Coupe released in 2005.

After putting in many hours scratching, etching, burnishing and layering I bailed on this design at the 23rd hour. Looking back I wish I hadn't.

2009-04-16T14:41:00.000-04:00

A series of posters for a monthly gig at a local pub. I play (fake) a little accordion, sing a few tunes, and design the posters for the Grindstone Cowboys, an alt. country band.

2009-04-15T15:15:00.000-04:00

This is my third go-around designing a cover for Ray Robertson's fine Moody Food, a 60’s rock novel harkening the spirit of The Great Gatsby and Gram Parsons. Like Parsons, the novel's anti-hero with Christ-like overtones meets his doom off a desert hi-way. The electrical poles work well.

Incarnation #2 published by the Santa Fe Writers Project makes use of one integral image and a subtly trippy title treatment.

Created in 2002, this is the original cover (published by Doubleday Canada) which attempts to combine elements of the burgeoning country-rock scene of the 60s with psychedelic drug-induced regalia of the day.

2009-04-14T16:45:00.000-04:00

A couple spreads from inside issue #20 of Coupe.

This issue runs on two paper stocks.

2009-04-14T16:34:00.000-04:00

This is the cover of the brand new issue of Coupe. It is also the 10 year anniversary of the little magazine I began a decade ago. I wasn't really thinking that far ahead when I started this thing. It all just sort of happened which is the best way for things to happen I suppose.

This is a strange, introspective issue, certainly where Coupe is most comfortable. A single poem runs thoughout the pages, repeats, fragments, and alters amid the dense but stark images of a forest.