This poster was commissioned for a Fund-Raising Excursion on the Potomac Eagle. The shoot took place at Wappacoma Station outside of Romney, WV. I donated my time to this, as it was a worthy cause. Pavey is a very sweet and deserving individual, and it was an honor to help.
The Book ’n’ Bean is one of those trendy, indie coffee shops that hosts an open mic once a week where postmodern angst flows like wine. I miss that place so much. I was working at a sign business when the owners needed a new sign in front of the business. I was more than happy to not only develop a highly visible identity, but provide a full suite of identity materials. A suite that once delivered, was adapted by the staff as Stamps, Stickers and a host of other improvised identity pieces.
This is one of those projects that I like coming back to with fresh ideas. This flier was one of those, just to help out a bit. All of the art is original and my creation using Adobe Illustrator. It was inspired by both the air brush poster art of the Object Poster and a nod to Movietone news graphics. There has been a recent revival of this type of work in the Gevalia advertising in posters and magazines. I think it is a response to the complexity of much modern design, using abstraction to simplify and elucidate the message.
The murder mystery train poster was an interesting job from the start, as the owner/operator was very specific about the style. He saw a proof that was very retro, a 2-color design that wouldn’t look out of place in Nashville. I opted against the red, yellow and black since that was one color too many. I liked the blue overprint so well that it was the final choice. I enjoy overprinted color very much, especially the style of Aesthetic Apparatus and their contemporaries. I am an abstractionist, in the sense that I like to take things out of context and manipulate ideas, but I disagree with the “medium is the message” school of thought in that a poster has to just be cool. I feel strongly that a concrete idea has to be conveyed beyond just “cool collage.” Most of my work is very driven by idea and concept with a strong echo of the content. It makes it easy to over think an idea, and even be pedantic… I think that is the biggest challenge in modern design.
One of the things that I like to do is comics. The fact that they are typically indie horror comics is just icing. This is the second installment in a series of Graphic Novels about a WWII Pilot, a Mentalist/Sorcerer and various Pop Mythology Beasties. It’s fun, full of action and leaves you hanging.
The Living & the Dead is a Graphic Novel that was written by Bob Tinnell and Todd Livingston and was Illustrated By Micah Farritor. At the request of Bob, I developed the logo, the look and feel based on Victorian Horror paperback cover styles. The Cover art was fantastic to work with and all I had to do was get out of the way.
I was responsible for the interior design, including using pieces of art created by Micah for the book. There were several pieces that I liked very much, but I used this for the primary title page. I also added an “aged” look to the pages and used an unusual typeface for the text. For most of the project, we wanted to eschew the typical comic look for something a bit more classic, while maintaining a darkness. To view the Flash trailer I designed for it, go here… and click on the “view the exclusive trailer.”
While working at COMAR, I had several magazines that I was at least partially responsible for. For instance, when the publisher decided to eliminate one magazine and build another from the ground up, I got to do development. I was responsible for the initial layout, color and typographic choices of MetroValley magazine. Although not designing the logo, I was tasked with prototyping every different page in the magazine, with the help of the creative team at COMAR. The original Editor and Creative Director steered me into something not quite as cutting-edge as I would have liked, but still very forward-looking for West Virginia. I chose, edited and finalized the cover image in addition to laying out the cutlines.
Some of the other work that I did for WVE, with notes. I also wore many hats for West Virginia executive, I was the lead designer, but I also processed images and choose photography from stock. Occasionally I would write or edit a bit and create custom illustrations as well as charts and graphs where appropriate. I wanted to maintain the feel of the original magazine while keeping the text layout foremost in the design. I choose an 11pt Janson Text for readability over the 10pt Garamond that was being used. I also liked the weight of the bold and italic, and felt it suited the material better.
