“The House is Burning” Book Cover
“The House Is Burning” is the first faux book cover design in a series based on episodes from the “No-Rank Zendo Podcast” hosted by Rinzan Pechovnik Osho. The episode “Rinzai Roku: The Burning House,” is the inspiration for this design.
Initial Sketch.
When creating the design, I was visually inspired by the poster design work of Saul Bass and the “Houses-2017” series by artist Stefan Zsaitsits.
I used tracing paper to break the sketch into separate pieces, which I then used to transfer on to construction paper. The person, fire, door, chimney, smoke and title were all made from cut-paper. The roof and facade were made using Speedball printing ink and the pochoir technique.
After finishing the analog portion, I scanned each part separately and arranged them back together in photoshop. I edited the colors and composition and finally added the artwork to a psd. book cover mock-up. The added author “Don Birman” is based on the main protagonist from Charles Jackson’s book “The Lost Weekend.” The font I used for the cover and spine is Providence Sans Pro, Regular.
“The Woman Let’s it Be” Book Cover
“The Woman Lets it Be” is the second installment of faux book cover designs based on episodes from the “No Rank Zendo” podcast on Spotify. Borrowing from the same title, the koan tells the story of a woman who is instructed by her mentor to chant the phrase “Let it be” to all of life's challenges. When her house catches fire and her son drowns, these are the words that lead her to find inner peace and enlightenment.
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The story is originally sourced from Zen teacher Tamara Myoho Gabrysch, who contributed the koan to “The Hidden Lamp,” a collection of 100 stories of Buddhist women from the time of the Buddha to the present day. Myoho is hence credited as the author on the book cover.
The cover consists of a series of paper cut-outs taken from a figure drawing exercise that chronicles the model waking up, getting dressed, and then falling back to sleep. I felt it was an excellent, figurative representation of the woman’s journey to enlightenment, cycles of joy and suffering, and surrendering to the uncontrollable.
“Find Your Multiplier” Book Cover
“Find Your Multiplier” shares the knowledge and experience of military veteran Carolyn Stratton and how she navigated building a career after years away from the workforce. For this project, I was asked to design the book cover, and I focused on the symbol “x” for multiplication, tying it to military parade marches. This concept formed the basis for the design.
Around the same time I was asked to create the cover, I was interested in experimenting with paper-mâché techniques and decided to incorporate them into the design.
Around the same time I was asked to create the cover, I was interested in experimenting with paper-mâché techniques and decided to incorporate them into the design.
Initial Sketch.
Final layout, including spine and back.
The figures that appear on the cover were made through a process of tearing construction paper and pouring boiling water over the pieces. This made the paper very malleable and added a nice crumpled texture. The figures are intended to represent the crossover from military to civilian life and were later edited in Photoshop. “Find Your Multiplier” can be purchased on Amazon.com.
Cover Inspo: Tomasz Boguslawski Posters
VisArts Call for Illustrators Poster Design
Final Design.
Refined Sketch.
For the Visual Arts Center of Richmond, I was selected among four featured illustrators to design the following year’s call for illustrators poster. I focused on the word, “call” and played with different ideas centered around the telephone. I’ve always liked the simplicity and charm of the “tin can phone” and used the visual element of the connecting string to spell out “Call for Illustrators.”
Photo Collage Inspo.
I wanted to make the poster in the style of a collage like my cut-paper work, so I decided to start with a photo collage of varioius different people standing by a window and used that as a basis for my sketch. All the images used in the collage were sourced from Pinterest.
Richmond Community Fridge Map T-Shirt Design
Final Design.
This project was part of RVACF’s call for artist to design a t-shrit displaying a small map of a specific community fridge. The fridge I was assigned is located by Tequlia & Deadlifts on W.Carry St. in Richmond.
T-shirt Mockup.
Intial Sketch.