A Day in the Life

So what does a day in the life of a graphic designer look like? This gives you a pretty good idea. I just have to say though, that the only way this book cover design was pulled off in just 6 hours was that it was #3 in a series—the basic look was already established, so no need for showing multiple comps and all that goes along with that. All you clients out there, just keep that in mind! :)

(HT to my friend and much-more-prolific-fellow-blogger Kristi for this.)

I Love Typography

I just stumbled across this delightful typographical blog (also now included in the links over at the left). Enjoy!

HOW Design Annual 2010

I just picked up a copy of HOW Magazine’s Design Annual a couple of days ago and am still salivating over so many of the inspiring examples of creativity displayed between its covers. Here is just one of them—a definite must-have item.

Icosahedron, Youcosahedron, Weallcosahedron

Check out my model of an icosahedron. I’ve been itching to construct one after reading about it in The Power of Limits. I finally found some time during the Christmas Holidays.



The icosahedron is one of the five regular solids discovered by Pythagoras and further explored by Plato, Kepler and many others. (Actually, there is ample evidence that they were well known to non-Greek cultures in times predating Pythagoras, but he is the first, as far as we know, to prove logically and mathematically that there are five and only five regular solids—no others are possible.) The icosahedron has twenty sides, each of which is an equilateral triangle. A glimpse from different angles reveals that it reverberates with both pentagonal and hexagonal harmonies. Most intriguingly, its internal core consists of three golden rectangles which intersect one another at right angles, and whose short sides touch upon opposing edges of the overall form.

For Plato and for the medieval alchemists and astrologists, each of the five regular solids was associated with one of the fundamental “elements” (earth, fire, air, water and ether or quintessence, the “fifth essence”) believed at that time to comprise the universe. The icosahedron was most often associated with water, though some of the lesser authorities assigned it as the representative of ether or quintessence (a role usually filled by the dodecahedron, or twelve-sided solid).

Christmas Card Illustration, 2009

Long about Thanksgiving, I decided it was time to start thinking about some sort of Christmas self promotion. Actually, I had been thinking about it for a while in fits and starts, but it was time (or rather, past time) to begin doing something if it was going to happen at all. So I managed to throw this together in a few days of fairly intense work and wound up using it on both personal and business-related Christmas cards. Anyway, I thought this might serve as a good example to use in explaining my technique, which in this case involves a combination of pen and ink and scratchboard.


The first steps always involve very basic decisions, such as the size and dimensions of the piece as it is to be printed, which in turn helps determine the size and dimensions of the illustration as executed. I had already decided that the final cards would be printed 5" x 7". I typically do the final illustration somewhat larger than the final reproduction size—sometimes up to 200% size, but usually around 130%-150% is more practical. In this case, I decided to execute on a piece of 8" x 10" board, but to keep the relative proportions in conformity with the final 5" x 7" size. When I’m illustrating a scene that has a definite historical context, I really enjoy using Google Earth as a tool to help me accurately visualize the setting, which in this case was the area around Bethlehem. In this case, I chose a vantage point looking SSE, from an area close to Rachel’s Tomb, on the road that leads from Jerusalem to Bethlehem. (The traditional location of the Shepherd’s Field is a bit further SE from this location, but after exploring that as well as some other alternative possibilities, I found this vantage point most to my liking.)


I begin sketching on tracing paper on top of the grid already established above. My initial sketch isn’t much to look at, but it serves the important purpose of fixing the location of all the major elements in the composition. The details of those elements will be worked out in subsequent sketches. Since I’m not the sort of illustrator who can usually render things very convincingly based on memory and imagination alone, I start rounding up some good visual reference for the trees, figures and animals.


Often, the most efficient solution for visual reference involves a quick photo shoot with some help from the family. (My neighbors have gotten acclimated to seeing some very odd scenes played out in our back yard on occasion. My wife always relishes this part of the process.)


Other resources include images found online, in books and magazines, and sometimes in magazines or other works of art. (For instance, I worked out the poses for some of the angels in the heavenly host based on an angelic figure from an illustration by my hero Franklin Booth.) Speaking of the heavenly host, one of my goals in this illustration was to convey the understanding that “host”, in its biblical context, actually denotes a military deployment—a heavenly army arrayed for battle, as opposed to the overly sentimentalized image of angels we are often confronted with. I certainly think that helps to explain the shepherds’ fear. At any rate, I had a couple of recipients comment on this aspect of my rendition, so I take that as a sign that I succeeded in that regard, at least.


Again using tracing paper to further develop the initial sketch, I created a second, more detailed sketch.


Ultimately, I determined that the drama of the composition could be improved by enlarging the figures of the standing shepherd and frightened girl and by moving them further into the foreground. This is a quick pencil sketch (based on some of the other photographs I had taken) which I created in the process of working this out.


Having worked out all the compositional factors to my own satisfaction, I do a third sketch which functions as a value study for the final illustration. This is an important step in the process, since the technique I am using requires some careful planning in regard to where the darkest and lightest areas of the composition will be located, which in turn determines how they will be executed—either “positively”, with pen on a white background, or “negatively”, using a scraper tool on a previously inked-in portion of the illustration. Even at this point, it’s not out of the question that I might change my mind, which is part of the reason for doing the value-study sketch. I had originally planned on inking in only the trees and perhaps the left-hand side of the conjoined foreground figures, but after doing this sketch, I decided that I would ink in most of the sky as well.


Again using tracing paper with an outline sketch of the main compositional elements, I begin transferring the sketch to the board for the final illustration. I use graphite transfer paper for the positive areas and, after inking in the negative areas and allowing them to dry thoroughly, I do the same for them using white transfer paper.


When the transfer is completed and before the actual work of drawing and scratching begins, here is what it looks like.

For the drawing, I used mostly a technical pen for this, but I also often use a dipped pen, usually with a crow quill or very fine nib. For a combo technique such as this, I prefer executing the final on Claybord, which is a very rigid, masonite-like board with an extremely smooth surface. (It’s also relatively expensive.) Esdee scratchboard is also pretty good. If I’m just doing pen and not reversing anything out I will often use bristol board. (I actually find that I get much better line quality, especially with a dipped pen, on bristol board.)


Here is the final in pristine black and white. After scanning this in, the color was added in Photoshop.

The Flying Islands of the Night

A few weeks before Christmas, I was reading up online regarding Franklin Booth, one of my hero illustrators. Almost as an afterthought, I decided to check ebay to see if anything associated with Booth might be available. Boy, was I ever not disappointed! It turned out that there were a couple of copies of this rare gem about to go for what seemed to be really bargain prices. I immediately jumped into the bidding for one of them (the better of the two) and actually won it—and for considerably less than I was willing to offer as a final bid! So of course, what did I do? When it came in the mail, I gave the package to my wife unopened and told her that she could save herself any further trouble: just wrap this and put it under the tree for me, thank you very much. Christmas Day having come and gone, I’ve certainly been enjoying my newly acquired jewel of a book for the past few days, which indeed arrived in remarkable condition for its near one-hundred-year-old age. (It even has an intact dust jacket!)



The Flying Islands of the Night is a fantastical three-act play in verse by James Whitcomb Riley, an American writer and poet whose mostly humorous and sentimental verse received notable attention and acclaim in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Two or three editions of the book had already been published when, in 1913, The Bobbs-Merrill Company put out an exquisite new edition with illustrations by Franklin Booth, a rising luminary in what would prove to be illustration’s Golden Age, and a fellow native, along with Riley, of Indiana. This edition solidified Booth’s reputation as a first-rate illustrator and also, in all probability, rescued this work of Riley’s from complete obscurity. For as far as literary merits go, the work itself is perhaps only slightly better than mediocre. The story indeed contains some imaginative embellishments, but manages to be rather undramatic and predictable on the whole. Riley’s verse, for all to which it aspires, meanders in realms of obscure tediousness for much of the time, with lurching outbursts of real brilliance here and there. (The better portions achieve an almost Chestertonian caliber.)



But again, it is Booth’s illustrations which really make this book. Booth is known primarily for his richly detailed and masterfully composed pen and ink drawings. These were featured in some books, but even more notably as spot illustrations for stories and as full-page advertisements in magazines such as Scribner’s, Good Housekeeping and National Geographic in the early twentieth century. His pen is in evidence here (albeit in comparatively subdued presentation) on the end sheets and title pages, but The Flying Islands of the Night is the most celebrated example of his work in color, executed with what appears to be a combined technique of pen and watercolor. Sixteen such color plates, tipped in on heavier, off-color stock and covered with a sheet of vellum (onto which one or two lines of the appertaining verse are printed in brown ink), embellish the story throughout. Booth’s rich imagination, his penchant for soaring compositions, his sumptuous use of “negative” space, and his love of pattern—all typical features of his work in both black-and-white and color, are on full display in each of these. Just a few more representative examples:

What’d I Say?

Finally got around to watching Ray (2004) this weekend, thanks to Netflix. (I know, I am way behind.) Loved the music, of course. (My maternal grandmother had some Ray Charles LPs which I got turned onto sometime in my early teens. They’ve passed down to me and still get spun with regularity on my studio turntable.) And I really appreciated the nice graphic vignettes that are sprinkled throughout. (It’s so inspiring to see graphic design being employed in movies in the digital age in ways that just weren’t feasible or even possible in earlier days.) There are some great performances here, some interesting (sometimes painful) character development going on, and some really nice dramatic touches throughout. In particular, I thought the theme of blindness was handled with artfully balanced sensitivity—it was certainly prominent, but not played up to the point of becoming all-consuming, as it might have been. (Incidentally, I’ve always been struck by how often the lyrics in Ray’s songs employ the idea of seeing…see the girl with the red dress on?…I can see that far away look in your eyes…still in peaceful dreams I see…you are my sunshine, etc. Also, a somewhat random observation: isn’t it rather strange how many famous musicians—Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley—have been haunted by dead siblings?) On a more sobering note, without getting too raunchy or debased (PG-13), the film offers a straight-up portrayal of the uglier side of Mr. Charles’ sin-riddled double life—the kind of in-your-face negative example which is helpful for husbands and fathers to be confronted with from time to time.

Howard Pyle and the Battle of Nashville

Today and tomorrow mark the 145th anniversary of the Battle of Nashville, a very significant event in the the history of my native city. The outcome of that battle was sealed a fortnight beforehand when Confederate commander John Bell Hood dashed his distinguished army like a porcelain pitcher against the well-entrenched Federal troops at Franklin. Following that disaster, the greatly diminished and demoralized remnants of the grey-clad army proceeded to “besiege” Nashville, which amounted merely to making a nuisance of themselves by camping out on the hills south of town and waiting to be driven back. This inevitable event was delayed by two weeks of miserably cold and icy weather (under which the Confederate troops again suffered much the worse), until a break in the wintry conditions allowed Union General George Thomas to begin the counter offensive on the 15th. The ensuing battle raged for two days—along the present-day route of Woodmont Blvd. and Thompson Lane on the first day, and along present-day Harding Place and Battery Lane on the second.

About forty years after the battle, Howard Pyle, the foremost illustrator of his day, was commissioned by Minnesota State Capitol architect Cass Gilbert to paint a large-scale depiction of the battle. (Minnesota lost a large number of her sons in the Battle of Nashville, particularly in the taking of Shy’s Hill on the second day.) The result became one of the most famous depictions of the Civil War, and it hangs in the Governor’s suite of the Minnesota State Capitol in St. Paul to this day. I do not know if Pyle actually visited the site beforehand, or if he worked from photographs, or relied solely upon his own vast imagination. But if, on a cold, overcast day like that almost a century and a half ago, one visits the locale he depicted, where opulent houses dominate the once muddy cornfield where thousands of men fought and hundreds died, a renewed appreciation of a truly great artist’s ability to capture the essence of an event through his work is gained.

The Power of Limits

I checked this out from the library thinking that I would probably just skim it, but I got so engrossed in it that I read the whole thing. The topic is one of perpetual fascination to me, perhaps bordering on a minor obsession: the pervasiveness of certain geometric patterns and harmonious mathematical relationships all throughout the created order, and most specifically, the relationship known as the golden ratio, or .618…. This unique and remarkable ratio manifests itself virtually everywhere one turns, in created works of both Divine and human origin: spiral galaxies, hurricanes, sunflowers, the chambered nautilus, the human hand and ear, notable works of architecture and graphic design, ancient Greek pottery, paintings by the likes of DaVinci and Seurat, musical harmonies, and a Boeing 747, all just for starters.

No book could possibly be said to cover the topic exhaustively, but this is one of the more thorough treatments I’ve encountered on the subject. It explores numerous examples of this sort of thing which I had never even begun to consider. There are really fine illustrations and diagrams (many of them quite intricate, detailed and beautiful) on every page. So, in terms of a surface-level analysis of the phenomena, this book is superb.

What I find much less satisfying, however, are the author's attempts, interwoven with increasing emphasis as the chapters progress, to discover what this all means on a deeper, spiritual level. Though he never articulates such a position explicitly, it seems that he would probably be on good terms with what has since become the Intelligent Design movement. (This book was originally published in 1981.) As a Christian however, I am firmly convinced that the doctrine of a personal, Trinitarian Deity is the most obvious point of convergence for all the universally imbedded testimonies to intertwined unity and diversity which this book is dedicated to exploring. Though not really surprising, it is nonetheless disappointing to see this conclusion ignored by the author in favor of an unsatisfying and impersonal hodgepodge of eastern dualism, mysticism, and vaguely beneficent evolutionary principles. (That last point is especially a very interesting notion, one which I think would be most difficult to harmonize with Darwin’s theory of natural selection.) At any rate, had the author been able to rise above all this, I might have given the book at least four (out of five) stars.

Credenda Agenda on Christian Artists

One of my long-time favorite magazines/websites has now become just one of my favorite websites. That particular disappointment, as well as the broader trend which it represents, is something that I’m struggling to come to terms with. Oh well, maybe I’ll try to work through all that in some future posts. In the meantime, Doug Wilson just published a worthwhile article there on the necessity for Christians to carefully navigate around—and perhaps even in, from time to time, as circumstances may require—what might be called The Cult of the Artiste, a peculiarly modern contrivance.

Cervantes and Poe

I’ve recently finished Cervantes’ Don Quixote, which I enjoyed immensely, despite its epic length. (Over one thousand pages in print; 35 discs on audio CD.) At some point in my reading/listening, I was reminded of a vague association of this work with Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem Eldorado. An initial search through my own volumes and online hasn’t turned up anyone who has made the case for any deliberate allusion to Cervantes on Poe’s part, but I think that such a case could certainly be made. And with that said (drumroll, please), I will now venture to offer my own amateur contribution to the realm of literary criticism, based on my own notes jotted down during the course of my recent read/listen:

Exhibit A: In sunshine and in shadow,… This phrase, or at least one very like it (the original was written in Spanish, after all), appears in PtI, BkIII, Cap1, where Don Quixote says “…and this is so true as that there hath been a knight that hath dwelt on a rock, exposed to the sun and the shadow, and other annoyances of heaven, for the space of two years, without his lady’s knowledge.”

Exhibit B: The name Eldorado refers of course to the fabled city of gold for which the Spanish conquistadors searched in vain throughout the western hemisphere. (And of significant note, Poe first published his poem in 1849, the year of the famous California Gold Rush.) On several different occasions in Cervantes’ novel (twice in the chapter referenced following, in fact), Don Quixote says something similar to this: “ I would have thee know, friend Sancho, that I was born, by the disposition of Heaven, in this our age of iron, to renew in it that of gold, or the golden world.” (PtI, BkIII, Cap6)

Exhibit C: The very curious and unique phrase mountains of the moon also occurs in PtI, BkIII, Cap6: “…the dreadful noise of that water in whose search we come, which seems to throw itself headlong down from the steep mountains of the moon…”

Exhibit D: And speaking of spectral shadows: “…the knight errant without a lady is like…a shadow without a body to cast it.” (PtII, Cap32)

Exhibit E: Lastly, there is the more general appeal to the overall tenor of Poe’s poem, concerning a wearied knight who is prodded onward (by Death himself?) to ride on in the face of almost certain death, a theme which is virtually omnipresent in the account of Don Quixote, the following serving as just one example: “ Let the remembrance of Amadis live, and be imitated in everything as much as may be, by Don Quixote of the Mancha; of whom may be said what was said of the other, that though he achieved not great things, yet did he die in their pursuit.” (PtI, BkIII, Cap12)

Taken in conjunction with the above observation that Poe’s poem was published during the frenzy of 1849, this last point raises some interesting possibilities. Assuming that Poe did have the Gold Rush on his mind, what opinion is he conveying with regard to it? Was it a manly, heroic pursuit of wealth and fortune in the far West, in the face of manifold difficulties and dangers? Or was it a fool’s errand, destined to end in disillusionment, financial ruin, and even (for more than a few) death? Or was it inexorably—and Quixotically—something of both?

La Bella Principessa

A painting that surfaced within the last dozen years—and which you too could have bought from Christie’s back in 1998 at an unbelievable steal of around 20 grand—has now been confirmed as an original by none other than Leonardo himself! Read all about it here. Quite an astounding discovery!