Immerse Yourself In The Floyd

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In the season of Pink Floyd that my summer has been, I was called upon to quickly create a 4-page series of new release book pages for several upcoming Pink Floyd collections. These are very sales-oriented pages but I try to never approach them in that dry of a sense. Instead, I also hope to treat them more editorially, or book-like.

To sit back, crank up non-single classic Floyd tracks like "Summer '68," "A Pillow of Winds," "San Tropez," "The Gold It's In The…," and "Childhood's End" while working on these "rush job" pages is something to embrace. For full details (of which there are many), click on the images to enlarge, and go pre-order them from your local record store or Amazon.com.

It's worth noting that the Immersion sets for the legendary Wish You Were Here album hits stores on November 8 while The Wall sees the light on February 28, 2012. It's also worth noting that I'm creating the sales pages for these titles as well.

Inspirations 2: Wood Block Printing

Target teamed up with the monstrously beautiful Hamilton Wood Type & Printing Museum in Two Rivers, Wisconsin. After the design team caught Typeface, a movie documenting the museum, they became focused on creating a line of clothing based on Hamilton's aesthetic. For more on how they came together, go here. To view the collection, go here.


An extended trailer for Typeface, the movie. See it…

Inspirations 1: India Block Printing

"After meeting the world's great hand-block printing artisans on a recent trip to northern India's Rajasthan, we asked them to make a special collection of quilts just for us. Watch here as they create an array of striking designs, all printed using intricately carved teak blocks and richly colored pigment dyes."
– West Elm's Craftmark Collection

The Process Behind: Admissions Poster

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Every year I have the pleasure of working with Natalie and the outstanding Admissions department at PCA&D. Every other year I get to redesign the look for their office, which is also coincidentally the best year! This year was of the "every other" kind so I dug in and began the process of tackling the first piece we dive into every year; the poster.


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STAGE 1: You've got to start somewhere, and for one reason or another, I often start conservative. However, the color scheme, fonts, partial obscuring of imagery and general guidelines of the final piece appeared instantly in the process.


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STAGE 2: I'm all about type-driven design so I busted the type out of the box and began to arrange it flush-left then flush-right and scaling it up and down all the while. I wanted to create a grid but then smash it, while also respecting it. No small feat.


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STAGE 3: The break-through stage, for sure. Back came the horizontal strip, now with a friend, and a healthy dose of a -11.75º angular tilt. I pictured this on the walls of schools and offices, knowing the tilt will demand attention and cause it to leap off the wall. Also, my goal now was focused on creating the sense that this poster captured merely a small segment of an otherwise on-going, ever-growing massive world of student artwork created at PCA&D. The poster, unlike previous years, was not about a few pieces – but the student work as a collective.


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STAGE 4: Naturally, I had to try the positive 11.75º angle as well. Unlike the -11.75º attempt, where I was all about it and attempting every logical type alignment I could muster, it didn't take me long to know this was not the better solution of the two.


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STAGE 5: And finally, instead of angling the bars and type, what about angling the artwork? This brought an all-new feeling to the poster, while utilizing something I was gravitating towards all along with the tilt. It came down to a matter of playing with the composition of type over top the imagery and the removal of specific artwork for reasons such as theme, content, and redundancy. The changing out of imagery was trickier than in previous years, of course, and often times I wanted to kick myself for painting myself into a corner with this approach. Regardless, I was very excited that they picked this version while, honestly, I also would have been very happy if they selected Stage 3 (far right). A good position to be in, for sure.

And with the final approval, the poster set the tone of typography, color and composition for the rest of the Admissions materials to follow. I truly do love this project.

For Your In-Flight Pleasure.

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For the first time in my life, I created an ad for the legendary magazine of extreme in-flight consumerism; SkyMall. Psyched. Thousands of people bored to tears whilst stuck in an over-crowded tin can at 30,000 feet will be able to check out just how precisely and artfully I squeezed a headline, 5 pack-shots, 486 words via 2,284 characters into a 7.375" x 10.5" ad (minus the SkyMall footer, as required by the publication). Lucky bastards, all of 'em.

I'm actually very excited to have something in the magazine but, all kidding aside, Tom Recchion & Co. are delivering some beautiful special editions. I had a great time this past May sitting with Tom in his office in Los Angeles, exploring many of his present and future projects. Much respect.