Get High Now by James Nestor

Get High Now is non-fiction (read: real) book with many many ways to induce alternative states of mind without drugs. It’s a small, two-color paperback -but packed with funny, odd and fascinating techniques. I wrote more about it here.

Basically Get High Now has meditative highs, stimulants, calming highs, things to eat, ways to breathe… So as a result the illustrations had to meet diverse needs. They include commissioned illustrations, patterns and stock imagery.

I’m happy with how colorful and accessible it looks despite being somewhat dense and only two colors. And I love the illustrations by Nancy Chan who worked with Sumi-e inks from photographs.

It’s a pretty funny and far out book in a non-stoner/hippy way. The Get High Now website features a pretty cool iPhone app based on some of the highs in the book.

Blind Trust by Barbara Boxer

Blind Trust is a political thriller by California Senator Barbara Boxer. It tells the fictional story of a politician whose enemies try to destroy her career by attacking her character with a well-planted financial scandal.

Although the book does have secret agents, ties with the Middle East and physical danger for her staff, it is not in itself a violent or blood story. That’s why none of the design concepts below worked. They were too violent. These sketches are specially creepy given that I used a real politician’s portrait.

The sketch covers below show some of the final concepts we were considering. The middle two covers are by Allison Weiner. I wrote a little bit about this here.

It was an interesting and long process to find just the right visual metaphor.

Bitten by Susie Bright

Bitten is a compilation of goth erotic short stories, or as the subtitle says: dark erotic stories. It’s edited by Susie Bright who also compiled X: The Erotic Treasury. The cover illustration is by Hannah Stouffer who also illustrated X.

This has a paperback cover with spot gloss over the snake scales, embossing on the title and author name, and spot metallic ink in the background.

The book block or page edges are dyed black to emphasize the “dark” in erotica, and to add refinement to the overall object.

And I love that it is shiny!

The interior has a traditional design, like X, with Avenir titles and Caslon body text. Hannah Stouffer also created little spot illustrations for the start of each story.

Unicorn Journal

An advance copy of the Unicorn Journal landed on my desk yesterday and I finally I got to see the cover with the holographic foil and the rainbow book block all in one. The journal is part of the unicorn series which includes the Unicorn in a Box and the Unicorn Mix and Match. I’m sure unicorn fans around the world are rejoicing.

This little guy has an uncoated cover, and opens flat without breaking. But I’m most excited about the four one-color signatures designed to create that magical rainbow effect on the edges of the book block.

Perfect for writing down dreams, odes and sonnets.

Birds

It’s hard to image imagine not liking birds, specially visually. I’m already animal crazy, so it shouldn’t be a surprise that I’m be a fan of books, art and photography featuring them.

I was really happy to work on Jeffrey Fisher’s book called, quite simply: Birds. I wrote more about it for Chronicle’s blog.

Birds may be trendy, but I hope don’t ever disappear -in art or in the natural environment.

Secret Weapon (spam postcards)

Secret Weapon is collection of 30 postcards featuring hand-lettered illustrations of various spam emails by British illustrator Linzie Hunter. Just to be clear, Linzie received them, she didn’t send them.

Out of context, these spam one-liners can seem somewhat abstract (in a great dada way). They’re definitely comical, and at times poetic. I love: “local chicks who need loving on the side” and “don’t put off your happy life.”

You can read more about Linzie’s spam art on this New York Times magazine article, which where Chronicle Books first came across her work. Design wise, it was mostly just a matter of picking a good cover and thinking about the back of the cards, and the front/back matter. It was definitely a collaborative process.

It’s been lots of fun sending these beautiful cards to friends, saying things like: “Enter the world of Boundless Sensual Enjoyments.”

Little cards for my friends

As a kid, writing letters to my grandmother was a ritual strictly enforced by my mother, and like the learning of a musical instrument, I’m now grateful for it. My grandmother recently passed away and I treasure her letters, always on sheer velum, in beautiful cursive handwriting that often gave away signs of pause or, in the later years, falling asleep. These days, I’m still not much of a letter writer, but I love making and sending cards to my friends in the mail.

The blue skulls above are linoleum block prints, used in last year’s Valentines. Below them is last year’s (Gocco’ed) Christmas card featuring a llama called Terry, who I met in Washington State over Thanksgiving.

Homemade Christmas cards and valentines are now a longstanding tradition for me. They often, but not always, feature animals and some sort of collage, even if just on the back. I don’t know why, but I’ve always loved cutting and pasting -much to my mother’s chagrin. In these days of InDesign, fancy fonts and Apple D’s…scissors and Rubber Cement are still friends of mine -as is the post office.

Unicorn Wishes

This is a project born out sheer unicorn love. We just knew unicorns were awesome and wanted to make something in their honor, and thus the unicorn in a box and mix and match stationery was born.

Finding the right illustrator for this project was the biggest challenge. The unicorn line needed to appeal to the believers as well as the ironic, pop culture aficionados -the kid market would be a bonus in this case. But the solution came when we turned to traditional fantasy and Gothic romance illustrators. Stanley Griesbach and Cheryl Martucci couldn’t have been a more perfect find. When I spoke with Stanley, this wise artist informed me that the project wouldn’t be a problem since he had three unicorns frequenting his New Jersey backyard.

Apparently this duo began collaborating at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but after a tragic boating accident they still continue working in the afterlife and can be contacted through their medium Bernstein & Andruilli. Usually Stanley conceptualizes the composition and drawing, while and Cheryl Griesbach completes the project in a oil painting technique derived from 16th century Northern European art.

They created five beautiful paintings for his project. We used them on the stationery sheets, and details on the envelopes, stickers, box, box booklet cover and a four-color journal which is coming out this fall. The tag line for this project is: “when you wish upon a unicorn all your dreams come true.” You may not believe that unicorns are real, but they are definitely magic.

Set in Magic Spell and Eureka.

Art of the Modern Movie Poster (cover)

The Art Modern Movie Poster is a huge book -big, thick and dense in the best way possible. And it demanded a colossal design effort to match. But the challenge was more than justified by the content. It’s filled with beautiful posters from the Posteriati collection in New York. The post WWII posters from the Czech Republic, Belgium, Italy and Eastern Europe are endlessly striking and unique.

I wrote more about his cover process on Chronicle’s blog. The cover is composed of a grid of posters varying in size, with spot gloss and a metallic Pantone background. The front title is set in Veer’s Large Pro on a removable belly band.

I worked closely with New York based designers Judith Salavetz and Spencer Drate to develop the interior design (grid, type choices and navigation). The book grid allowed for two, three and four columns. The interior was set in Avenir and Garamond.

The Heartbreak Diet

I don’t think there is anything else out there like The Heartbreak Diet. It’s a graphic novel by San Francisco illustrator Thorina Rose. It tells the story of her divorce and subsequent recovery.

The jacketed hardcover is in color with silver foil stamping. The interior is one color (black)

The illustration style is very fluid. All brush work, with somewhat of a sketch book or journal feel.

This was one of my first projects returning to Chronicle and really there wasn’t much design involved. The format was already chosen. It was mostly a matter of production, working with different layers of scanned illustration.

I love her sense of humor. For example, right after she learns her husband was unfaithful, Thorina feels compelled to tell every friend and acquaintance she meets about her ex-hustands bad behavior, but when her mom calls, she’s tight lipped, telling her everything is just fine. The portraits of strong women sprinkled throughout are pretty cool as well.