Phew, what a last few weeks it has been, but wow, to see it all in print tomorrow morning will really make it all worthwhile. Balancing feature and cover designing was certainly a challenge, but no design challenge comes without plenty of learning experiences. I thought I'd go through the design process for the cover design, specifically, to look at how my initial concepts transformed into what you see in print. So, here we go...
As part of the requirement for submitting cover concepts for the first cover competition, I provided the editors with three very different takes on the True/False feature of Vox. I began with three cover options: an illustration, a studio concept and a concept that evolved from my Spring Preview cover design.
>> From this...
This cover was modeled after my Spring Preview cover concept, using a neon, nighttime theme. If fully executed, the cover would have used photos from actual True/False venues.
This cover concept was done to correlate with the retro space visual theme for the True/False feature that Allison and I were working on. I used the idea of a human invasion that the city of Columbia is faced with during the True/False festival. The city is full of people from all walks of life during this weekend so I thought this human invasion idea would be a nice way to play that up.
This preliminary cover design represented my studio concept. Concepts using a studio shot can be difficult to show in its initial form, so this one requires some explanation.
I wanted to play up the idea of the ultimate juggernaut, which is a term that the festival uses to describe their superstar volunteers – those that dedicate more than 40 hours to the festival. I wanted to create a relationship between the festivalgoers and the volunteers, so I took the juggernaut idea and made it into a festivalgoer – someone that's just as passionate and dedicated to the festival, but as an audience member. I would deck out the model to in their True/False gear, with a pass around their neck representing a festival pass that would contain the cover sell lines. This ended up being the concept that the editorial team wanted me to take a step further.
The studio concept was the favorite among editors (and here it's merely that, a concept, not a design), and I was asked to further explore the possibilities with this studio concept to create a final cover design with a real photo shoot to submit for a finalist for the True/False cover competition. The idea would be that doing an actual shoot would provide editors with more information on the shoot, and then would allow them to re-shoot if my cover concept was chosen for the issue.
>> To this...
I spent my next weekend finding all of the True/False gear for the shoot, the location and of course, the models. Lucky for me, The Butterfly Tattoo was more than willing to let me borrow a shopping bag full of True/False goodies for the shoot, even knowing the cover might have even run, and for that I will forever be a loyal customer. I decided to create two options for the editors to have when it came time to decide on a final design for the issue, so I convinced two friends of mine to agree to doing the shoot. Of course as you might expect, my models were late, however the outcome was truly worth the wait. The shoot took place just outside my house, with a few wardrobe changes and adjustments along the way. In the end, it was the red and black get-up photos that were really the most successful. The juggernaut idea, again, is used in the headline, and then the issue's theme for the feature "What True/False."
>> And finally... this.
So, here it is... the final cover! I think the most exciting part of it all was having a byline for not only designing, but for the photo as well (editors had a second photo shoot, but decided on my original photo for its more compelling composition). The fact that I had my hands in every aspect of the design made seeing the final product in print that much more rewarding.
I really liked the way your T/F cover turned out. I loved the concept when you first presented it, and it looked even better after you actually shot it yourself. I like that you cut off the eyes of the model so as not to personalize it too much and allow others to put themselves in that fanatic role.
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