I know I’ve neglected the blog for the past couple of weeks. However, new work is on its way. Promise.

I’ve been spending much of my time over the last several days under the hood of my old Volvo. Did some major renovations down there, which didn’t leave too much time for work.

Fortunately I’m done (for now), and shouldn’t have to touch a wrench for awhile.

Next week, I will return with some new work though. Hooray for new work!

I'm sketching schooners.

This will eventually be another book cover, one for David Copperfield. I should be able to have it up next Friday.

Based on last week’s project, I decided to do a boxed set of books. I’d like to do it right this time, so I’m getting as much information as I can about book cover design. I’m excited to design another, though! The first was a fun project.

I recently came across the blog FaceOut Books, which covers lots of terrific book design. The amazing work posted there inspired me to try my hand at it.

My grandmother gave me her copy of Charles Dickens’ Bleak House before she died. Bleak House is long. Really long. Like, intimidating. But once I buckled down and started reading it in earnest, I sort of fell in love with it. It’s an amazing, intricate, moving story.

The copy I have is hard bound and published in the 50s; it’s been shelved much of its life, so it’s in good shape, but it lacks a sleeve. I decided that that’s what I’d do for this week’s post–put together a sleeve for it.

Victorian classics like Dickens’ books are typically dressed in traditional, stoic typography with some sort of painting framed appropriately in the center of the front cover. While these are elegant, classical design solutions, they’re not exactly appealing to viewers, say, in a book store. They’re not even appealing to students who have to read these books for school.

I didn't design this, obviously.

The sanserif above isn’t exactly what I mean (that minimalism is actually pretty slick), but you get the idea.

So I decided to go in the opposite direction. The cover I designed is inspired by brush lettering on posters of decades past. The edges are kept rough intentionally; the story is a long, passionate one, so I thought rough brush lettering appropriate.

The window and birds are a depiction of a pivotal, moving scene in the book, which you’ll have to read to understand.

This is my first (real) attempt at brush lettering. I’d like to try to get better at it, actually. This week I came across my mother’s old pen and ink/calligraphy set, so I’ve got some hardware to work with now. That’s exciting.

Brush lettering detail

It took several pages of sketchbook to get the lettering where I wanted it. I started off using pen nibs for a more clean look, but ended up digging out an old cheap Crayola watercolor brush and dipping it in India ink and going to town. I wanted the letters to have rhythm, but also some level of emotion, so I blotted the brush slightly dry and left the edges very rough. I’m pretty happy with the results.

Futura rounds it all out on the spine, the author’s name, and the inside flaps.

I did the whole thing away from my office, where I have lots of resources on hand-lettering. In fact, this was totally blind–as in, no typographical reference–I just sort of went by feel with the lettering here.

I tried taking pictures of the final product wrapped around a book, but they didn’t come out…I’d like to try again once there’s daylight.

When I got the idea and started sketching, I imagined the lettering raised and the birds embossed, but we do what we can with what we’ve got, I suppose.

Anyway. Enjoy. Till next week!

(Also, if you happen to have a copy of Bleak House that needs a cover, I’ve uploaded a PDF and an AI version. These were produced on a Windows machine, Mac users. If your book has different measurements than mine, feel free to resize and everything. Heck, if you see I’m doing something stupid in my file, tell me. Always looking to improve.)

I’ve gotta start working on these things ahead of time. They always end up becoming projects of their own–which is sort of the point, I suppose. But I need to devote a whole day to them, or a small amount of time each day.

I think that’s the ticket–a small amount of time each day. Maybe if I start putting an hour aside every day to work on it it’ll happen on Friday.

Scheduling is not my strong suit.

I subscribe to the Daily Heller, a daily newsletter written by graphic design legend Steven Heller. The information is always good and the commentary is always insightful. There are a couple of posts, though, that stick out in my mind as particularly inspiring:

Apparently, Heller is related by marriage to Louise Fili, whose firm recently re-launched their site. It’s beautiful, typographically, and the work is absolutely stunning. (They do, however, use images as text throughout the site, which is a practice that should have died with the dot-com bubble. It’s beautiful to look at…unless you use a screen reader.) As suggested in the Heller, check out their case studies for some serious inspiration and informative copy. I can only hope I’ll be that good one day.

Also recently blogged by Heller: the work of Patrick Thomas, silkscreen artist and sociopolitical commentator extraordinaire. His work is terrific–the compositions are excellent and the messages striking. I’ve never really been interested in silkscreening as a process, but his work makes me want to try it out. Perhaps one of these days I’ll put up some posters done one weekend…

Moving on.

Hard Format is a blog dedicated to music design. They post brief write-ups and (more importantly) beautiful images of the actual hardware of music designers’ work: the album art. Most of what they post is absolutely great. In particular, this post on Tina Frank’s work really got me going. Her work has an ethereal quality that I love, even though some of the visual elements seem disjointed. Seeing her work actually got me more interested in trying collage out a little more extensively, which I hope to post next week.

Matthew Hollings’ work is terrific. While much of his portraiture focuses on musicians and celebrities, the gritty, graphic quality of the spatters of black ink over broad washes of color is really incredible. His technical skill is great, of course, but his compositions are all so solid. He occasionally includes type, which I love–I do that all the time in sketchbooks, when drawing people, but I never would have the bravery to put type on a finished portrait. He does, to great effect, and it’s totally inspiring.

I love to cook, and I think that graphic design is just as influenced by food as it is music, or contemporary art, or architecture. Most creative pursuits are related, and that’s quite evident in the work of I Dream of Cake. No silly Ace of Cakes-style creations here; all their cakes look like sculptures. They make cakes to resemble jewelry, haute couture clothing, and children’s books; however, my favorites are their traditional wedding cakes, which are detailed with incredible intricacy. Many of them are compositional works of beauty. (I’d link to some, but their site is about as inaccessible as Flash sites get.) So although it’s not a graphic design site, I’m sure you can find something to love in the portfolio that will inspire you in your next job.

Many have probably seen this already, but there’s a nice interview with design luminary Paul Rand on youtube. Rand is one of the most influential, widely-renowned graphic designers of the 20th century, and his thinking and writing about design never fail to inspire or motivate. In the interview he shares his thoughts on graphic design, and it’s very informative. He had such a genuine quality that I love.

That’s it for me. My eyes are closing. Until next week!

But here I am! And I’ll have more on Friday.

This is just a little thing I did more for myself than anything. A friend started a playlist group on Facebook, where you upload a playlist and DIY album art for your friends to download.

I went a little overboard with the album art. If I’d had the energy and time I would have done a booklet.

Actually, that’s a good idea. Maybe I’ll do a full album cover and downloadable PDF booklet on the next one.

Front cover:

Back cover:

I actually really enjoyed playing around with this. It’s been a long time since I fired up Illustrator specifically to goof off and do something I’ve never done before. And I’m fairly proud of the results.

Onward and upward!

But I still doodle like crazy on to-do lists. This is a recipe I’ve wanted to try for awhile.

Man, being sick and malnourished leads to shaky hands. That is some lumpy lettering. And the ornaments are all outta whack. I would be able to comfort myself in the ideal that the whole crooked, hand-drawn look is sort of all the rage these days, but that’s not really my thing; this isn’t entirely on purpose, so I think it sucks.

Anyway–sorry for the whole I-told-you-I’d -post-something-new-today-but-then-I-take-it-back. So duplicitous of me! However, some real design is in this blog’s future. Promise.

(Side note: this whole page sort of got me thinking, why have I never done collage? I did some while I was in college, but disliked it because the assignments seemed contrived. They weren’t even really presented as collage. Now that I look at it, though, I realize that it can be a powerful tool for composition, and some striking imagery sometimes results. Stephen Heller even recently wrote a short piece on collage and specifically one designer whose work is influential. I should stop shying away from it and break out the X-Acto and Elmer’s.)

Fantastic edibles

Being as this is a WordPress-powered website, I’m seriously underutilizing the software it’s built on.

And besides that, I’ve gotten a little bit flabby around my graphic design waistline,: the majority of my client work, while enjoyable, doesn’t come close to pushing the boundaries of what good design can be, and what it can do. Of what I can do, really.

So, it’s time to take the reins.

Laying it Down

I posted earlier about realigning myself professionally–about becoming something greater than what I am, in a design sense. But if nobody can see what I’m capable of doing via my online portfolio, that’s impossible. So it’s time to start doing. Outside of client work, my design practice is limited to my sketchbooks, where I frequently draw type and ornaments; my real work is nearing stagnation, and I’m going to use this site to keep me doing the sort of work I love–the sort of work I enjoy doing–while working on my client projects.

To that end, I’ll be posting at least once per week. Every Friday, I will have posted something to my blog that I have either produced, or that I’ve found inspiring. The goal is to produce something new once a week–not necessarily ground-breaking or mind-shattering; just something new, out of my head–and in the process hopefully motivate others who do what I do. (And ultimately, yes, I’d like this to move me closer to where I want to be as a designer.) This will continue for as long as I can keep it up.

The other thing is, I’ve been murmuring about a redesign of this site for a year now. I was unhappy with it two weeks after it launched, and have simply avoided re-working it. Now the design is outdated and less functional than it could be, so I’m starting from scratch: I’m producing new content. Perhaps what I post here will make it into, or at least inspire, the redesign in the coming months.

Anyway. This is an early post–but Friday I’ll be posting another project I’m working on, as well as updating my portfolio to include my recent work, and exclude everything else.

Sketches Instead

Since I haven’t prepared anything special for today, I’ll just include some sketches. I recently purchased a few three-packs of the paperback Moleskine unruled 4″ x 6″sketchbooks and I love them. They’ve been great–they’re portable, being relatively thin and flexible; they have that awesome pocket in the back; and they scream to be used.

The one I’ve been using has been a glorified to-do list. I try to treat my to-do lists with different graphic elements when I keep them updated (which I’ve been horrid about until recently). They’re not exactly layouts, but I often try to stick to some sort of cohesive graphical theme.

So far, with this book, it’s been mostly about 19th-century serifs.

Wallace Vanderschmidt says NO

I drew this on the way to New York in September. Page 1.

Six pages later, I’d scribbled out a really ugly to-do list and decided to spruce it up with a motivational cartoon.

Cowboy Moe has a message

Despite the lack of checkmark, I did eventually get screwdrivers. I’m not sure why I switched to a western theme. I’m also not sure who Cowboy Moe is. But I like him.

Politically incorrect. Austrians don't misspell "Wienerschnitzel."

And now we switch to a Mad Men sort of thing. I was actually imagining Don Draper while drawing the individual who consumes too much red meat above. I was also not paying any attention whatsoever to a meeting.

I can't write in a straight line to save my life.

From the 50s to a mixture of late Victorian stuff and Modernism. I’ve actually become rather enamored with the idea of mixing ornate Victorian style with minimalistic Modern.

Bloggin'. It's for your noggin'.

This page ended up being less of a layout and more of just a smattering of random tasks in somewhat random but related styles. Pulled out a royalty-free Victorian design motif book and started doodling from it while making my lists, and so far this is probably the best page of the book. (Although I hate when I get wrapped up enough in rendering type as cleanly as I can–that is to say, not cleanly at all–only to leave out a letter or otherwise misspell a word.)

So. There’s a bit of a something for this space. Friday I’ll be posting something I’ve been thinking of doing for awhile, but only recently had the motivation to.

He asked me if I could participate in his next chat and I agreed, and it was a lot of fun. It was interesting to field questions from people genuinely curious about how to improve their websites.

There were some technical difficulties, though, and some questions got cut off mid-answer; one in particular had to do with being burned out with client work.

Mija asked whether or not I got burned out on client projects.

In short: yes, of course I do.

While I try to keep my business small (the idea is that I work to live, not live to work), there are occasions where I’ll get spurts of business. Lots of client work means lots of deadlines which means lots of juggling; and more often than not, clients wait till the last minute to ask me to do something, and expect whatever they need done within days, and because of my natural people-pleasing tendencies, I’ll usually flog myself to get it done. That’s just the way it goes, especially if you’re freelancing: business comes in spurts, which means you’ll spend some nights working and not sleeping, if hitting the deadline means anything to you, so you’re bound to get burned out. It happens.

But I like working that way. It keeps things exciting and keeps me enamored with the work. It also means I don’t mind taking micro-vacations once a big project is finished, which is something nine-to-fivers don’t really have the option to do.

So there’s no question that you’ll get burned out if you work for other people on a freelance or contract basis. It’s what you do about it that matters.

The important thing when working for yourself is the deadline. If being burned out, for you, means you can’t make the deadline, then do everything you can to avoid it; your ability to meet your deadline is also your reputation and your client’s trust.

On the other hand, if you can work through being burned out (although of course it’s something you’ll want to avoid if possible), and at the same time keep your clients satisfied, then do it.

Regardless of how you deal with being overwhelmed with work, it’s very important that you remain honest and transparent with your clients. It’s important that clients know where they stand; and although one client is not necessarily more important than the other, you do have to prioritize whose project will be worked on first, and if that means a slight delay on another client’s project, so be it. But make sure they know if there’s going to be a delay, and make sure they know you’re swamped. An uninformed client is less likely to be merciful than an informed one.

Also important: make sure they know their boundaries. Many times, part of being overwhelmed is feature creep–a situation caused by clients asking, usually at the last minute, for extra features that were not included in the project brief or contract. It’s fine if they want new features; that’s not the problem, because it is inevitable that people see something that they need that they hadn’t anticipated. Your responsibility, though, is to tell them that they can either have new features at the cost of the launch date, or we can stick with the project brief and launch on time. They also have to know that new features generally will cost more, so that they’re not surprised when the invoice comes in.

Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to be transparent and open with your clients. When your work feels like it’s piling up, and you’re getting burned out, try not to panic; look away from your computer, grab a cup of coffee. Do some physical activity to clear your mind. Make sure your client knows where they stand, and do your best to balance your workload so that your being overwhelmed won’t affect their deadline. Being burned out will happen eventually, but if you handle it well you’ll come out of it gracefully and your clients will come back to you.