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A worthy question. A crazy project.

The question doubles as the title for MTV’s The Buried Life‘s first book. If you gave up on MTV the way I did in college, I needed to be reminded (and a little restored) that every once in a great while, the channel puts out something with an interesting hook. So for the uninitiated, The Buried Life is a group of four friends from LA with a substantial bucket list. Such examples from the list include but are not limited to: playing basketball with Barack Obama, teaching an army of fire ants how to Dougie and streaking a football stadium. They ingeniously scored a way to get MTV to pay for their cross country travels (for at least one season), documenting the execution of these big list items one by one.

One item on the list, as it happened, was publishing a book. Since publishing a book makes for lousy TV, they teamed up with Artisan Books to make it happen. The resulting tome is an illustrated bucket list lending a kind of absurdist visual aid to 100 goals which they intend to accomplish before passing on.

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Myself, Chris Brand, Matthew Hollister, Ted McGrath, Oliver Munday and Jeff Scher were recruited by Kevin Brainard (who designed the book) to illustrate nearly all of the bucket list items page for page. The brief was, for me, the best kind of crazy. We each had to incorporate the list item typographically into each image using handmade means whenever possible. The images had to comment on the list item in question rather than simply reinforce their intent. Each image had to retain a sense of swift execution and immediacy–as if the image was conjured and illustrated as quickly as the corresponding thought was conceived. Of greatest significance to me was a specific request regarding execution. Because the aspirations on the list ranged from globally altruistic, to personal, to whimsy, to obnoxiously self-serving (i.e wanting to deliver someone else’s baby), we were asked to throw any kind of stylistic consistency out the window. Each image had to give the impression that it was being fostered from a different voice. That hooked me.

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The process was a little intense. Among the recruited illustrators, the full-time freelancers were given 30-40 list items to illustrate. Those of us who were pre committed to a full time job (like me) were given 20-25. The sheer number of items and concepts helped to fulfill the brief’s request that the images retained a sense of immediacy insofar as that all of us had to work as swiftly and as thoroughly as possible in order to keep pace and deliver on time. There wasn’t too much time to obsess on the details which made another component of the brief: that each image stand alone stylistically, a little easier to accomplish. Because we were working so fast, we became exclusively focused on the storytelling component of each image. If a wash of watercolor on canvas felt like a form-fitting solution to the item at hand but watercolors weren’t your technical strength, you had between 60 and 80 minutes to make your case, as your list was long and available time was short.

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In the end, some of my experiments were more successful than others. And even if certain images I worked on came up short in my own personal court of opinion, the opportunity to freewheel so thoroughly is rare enough that it’s tough to regard any one illustration I took a crack at as an out-and-out failure. Feelings on The Buried Life and MTV notwithstanding, the book is worth spending some time with just to see how much visual variety and inventiveness came from all of the contributors’ speed, imagination and instincts.

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New book covers! Which is to say that they’ve been in work for a while and are now seeing the light of day all at once.

First off: The Taliban Shuffle, above, is another take on the U.S.’ epic snafus in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but it’s a twentysomething memoir in form. Kim Barker, who at the time was a freshly minted war correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, recalls how she was drawn to the conflicts in the region in part as a means to avoid making her big, twentysomething life decisions back in the states. As she becomes more and more seduced by the lifestyle and drama of living like a first-hand war junkie, she gets as fixated on partying and casual dating in the warzone as she is with witnessing the gradual self implosion of both countries.

The book tows a tragicomic line between one of the biggest military blunders of our time and a young writer’s confessional. It’s funny except when it isn’t.

Art direction: John Gall

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Next up: Black Cool for Soft Skull Press. The book is an anthology curated by author Rebecca Walker which pools a not insignificant grouping of black writers and artists (dream hampton, Hank Willis Thomas, bell hooks and Dawoud Bey among others), each of whom contribute an essay offering up their respective takes on how and why black people are cool.

More specifically, they each seek to define what makes the singularity of ‘black’ coolness so distinct.

This project was intimidating in every respect. Primarily, Rebecca assembled an inspired group of contributors to write about something which, by her own admission, was not something that could (or theoretically should) be articulated with words.

Secondly, I am white. Also, Jewish. Design credentials notwithstanding, I had a near-impossible time bestowing any confidence in any visual for the cover which I felt could serve as a catch-all representation of an inimitable essence of culture which belonged to a group of people of which my shared history is thin. Even if I thought I landed on the right treatment, who was I to declare it was the right treatment?

This kind of thinking gave way to an internal stalemate in which I would automatically presume any idea I initially thought was worthy to be wrong because I instinctively thought it had merit. I attempted to circumvent said stalemate by designing comps with specific formal rules. Some would be type only and others would be image only. The ones which had a more traditional type/image combination were ultimately rejected outright, which I count as a good thing. One particular experiment which I allowed myself to get excited about for a second or two involved a completely black cover with all of the text printed with a clear gloss varnish save for the word ‘Cool.’ Alas, no-go.

While I’m personally very happy that the author and publisher favored the stark type treatment which won out, it’s been hard to shake the suggestion that a book which celebrates an indescribable, uncategorizable “something”, shouldn’t have text on it at all. Or maybe I’m wrong. Still thinking on that one.

Art direction: Rebecca Walker, Denise Oswald and Laura Mazer

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With a book on race following a book on war, the book on politics naturally follows the book on race. Herding Donkeys by Ari Berman charts how the slow groundswell of small Democratic grassroots organizations scattered across the country in the early 00’s grew to mobilize Howard Dean’s presidential run in 2004. The lessons both good and bad from which were not lost on Obama’s campaign strategists in 2008. Berman frames the events to demonstrate how small satellite organizations were able to enact real activity and sway in an election year (which, in retrospect, paved the way for the kind of leaderless activism like Occupy Wall St. which we’re seeing more and more of now). One of the blurbs on the back of the book compares Berman’s data crunching based narrative to the same kind of storytelling employed in The Social Network, and that’s not far off. A thorough, data-backed reminder that elections are about a helluva lot more than the candidates and their platforms. Designed for Picador.

Art direction: Henry Sene Yee

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And then there’s Religion For Atheists.

The jacket copy distills Alain de Botton’s new one nicely:

What if religions are neither all true nor all nonsense? [de Botton] argues that the supernatural claims of religion are entirely false, but that…rather than mocking religion, agnostics and atheists should steal from it—because the world’s religions are packed with good ideas on…how to, among other concerns, build a sense of community, make our relationships last, overcome feelings of inadequacy, inspire travel and reconnect with the natural world.

Art director and general design superfreak Peter Mendelsund at Pantheon discussed this project with me under the terms of a kind of Devil’s bargain (pun emphatically not intended). He invited me to go hog wild with whatever elaborate jacket materials I could think of (which was great), but as the cover was a rush, he needed to see comps in one week (which was great’s opposite). So I had a somewhat trying week.

At the end of said week, and with a few additional nips and tucks, we arrived at an idea which made literal the expression of ‘poking holes’ through a belief system. We elected to create a recognizable bible cover and punch a hole straight through it. To better simulate the impression of a leather bound bible, we texture embossed the jacket and gold foil stamped the front and spine with a huge production assist from Pantheon designer Linda Huang. In holding firm to the rule of die-cuts that they’re pointless without a payoff, we wrapped the case of the hardcover under the jacket like so:

de Botton’s approach to this material is in no way snarky, mocking or dismissive. All the same, I have not yet personally confirmed with Pantheon the extent to which they anticipate public condemnations, protests outside the office and/or letterbombs. The man himself offered up his own personal bottoms-up to that point last week on Twitter:

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(Larger, more view-happy version here).

Does our planet need yet another poster? Will the cosmos finally be made whole by its inclusion? In the innermost reaches of my head and heart, I must have thought that it would because after two plus years of promising to both myself and others that I would make this thing, I finally did.

Boasting the single most basic grid known to man, the sheet is comprised of what might be deemed the whiniest, bitchiest, most aggravatingly complaint-heavy people you’ve ever had to suffer through in print. Or, if you’re like me, you can privately relate to their lamentations just a little bit.

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The poster is based on an illustration I did for Kelly Doe when she was art directing the now defunct Week In Review at the Times. (It looked like this). The original illustration accompanied an article by A.O. Scott addressing the oncoming mid-life crisis of Generation Xers. The poster runs a little further with the idea insofar as to simultaneously acknowledge and refute the nagging feeling that you’ve led a wasted, unproductive, unaccomplished life. Whatever else can be gleaned from that much complaining will be solely accredited to the viewer’s own degree of self loathing.

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This poster was printed with exactly two colors: black over blue. Not to overstate the obvious, but that was a conscious decision in terms of both narrative and economic practicality. It measures 18” x 24” and is printed on archival FSC-certified white Cougar 100lb cover stock with a vellum finish. As I have yet to hang one in my own home, I can’t yet attest to the transcendence that occurs once it’s hung on a wall, however they’re already looking mighty damn good sitting tightly stacked and packed in a flat box in my apartment, so I’d say the odds are good.

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An edition of 100 were made and as of now I have about 90 remaining. If you’re interested in scoring some of this particular brand of huffing and puffing for your home, office or restroom, I’ll be parting with them for either $20 + shipping or in exchange of an art/design item of equal value. If anyone is interested in a poster trade, all the better. Since I have no online setup on my site to exchange goods for money on these things, let’s do this: email me here. We can sort out the Paypalling from there.

Happy agonizing!

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My first ever visit to the previous offices of the New York Times on 43rd street began with a pigeon emptying its bowels on my head.

I was early for a portfolio review with Brian Rea, the then art director of the Op/Ed page, and rather than bum rush him first thing in the morning, I elected to hang out and wait until the time of our scheduled meeting had arrived just as a regular person might. I stood across the street flipping through the paper, filing away the minutes, when several gumball-sized globs of what looked like tainted vanilla yogurt dropped unceremoniously onto the newspaper I was reading and shortly thereafter, on to my head. It wasn’t yogurt. It was terribly upsetting.

Whether it’s interpreted as a sign of good fortune or not, a bird crapping on anyone’s head is inevitably going to give way to some fruitless ‘why me?’ fashioned navel gazing. I recall that portentous episode with the bird a fair amount whenever I try to pinpoint the precise moments when I began taking active steps towards doing the kind of design and illustration work that I’m fortunate to be doing now. I thought about it when I saw my first ever op/ed image printed in the Sunday paper. I think about it whenever I find myself burning the wick after hours on a book project. I definitely thought about it this past September when the current Sunday Review AD Aviva Michaelov called me not for another assignment, but to offer me the opportunity to become the newest art director of the Times’ Op/Ed page. And to be sure, that looming pigeon was on my mind when I accepted.

I’m only a few weeks into the gig as of this writing and there is still much to absorb. As is the terminal case with Op/Ed, my pace at the job started at a decent sprint and has since accelerated. As a consequence, a handful of similar sounding questions have popped up repeatedly without having a moment or three to give halfway decent answers. Below are all the questions and answers that I’ve done a lousy job of fielding in the past few weeks:

Q: Is Aviva leaving?
A: No. She’s doing the opposite. Going forward, Aviva’s art directing focus is the Sunday Review. My focus is the Op/Ed page with periodic dips into the Sunday Review. The talented Alexandra Zsigmond is the assistant art director for both sections. We all sit in a row divided by shallow walls and trade notes throughout the day. It’s like Three Amigos except at a newspaper.

Q: Can I email you my portfolio?
A: For heaven’s sake, yes. Please do. Anyone who’s interested and enthusiastic about contributing to the page shouldn’t keep it to themselves. Email can be directed here: Matthew.Dorfman@nytimes.com. I may not be able to send out a timely response, but I’m never not looking at work. Be persistent and reach out.

Q: Can I come by the office show you my portfolio in person?
A: Again, yes please. The days are crazy, but let’s set up a time. Email me & we’ll lock something down.

Q: Will you still be taking on freelance projects?
A: Yep, albeit selectively. As long as it’s not for a competing publication and/or requiring a concept-to-final execution in 48 hours or less.

Q: What did you do immediately after that pigeon crapped on your head?
A: I was, um, lucky. I used whatever stray napkins I had in my bag as well as the newspaper itself to scrape as much of the detritus out of my hair as possible. Afterwards, I rushed into the building and quietly begged a security guard to point me to the closest men’s room to clean off. He took substantial pity on me and never once snickered.

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In doing a casual 360 around my desk every day and getting to know my editors throughout my initiation, I can safely claim that the tales I’d been told for years about the job’s intensity, fast turnaround, quick thinking and swift pace are wholly intact. Events happen, stories shift and messages get tweaked throughout the day and regardless of the news’ inherent chaos, there needs to be art on the page at the end of every day that remains thoughtful and compelling and coherent no matter what. Fortunately for me, in the short time that I’ve been on the flip side of the desk, I’ve already been the beneficiary of some fairly stunning pieces of art that people have generously accepted to do in the Times’ notoriously short window of time. Here’s a quick sampling below.

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Having zero expectations on my first day, I was handed piece about consumer spending versus private investment. I called Tim Goodman on a hope and a prayer that he’d be available. He was and subsequently, he nailed it:

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Later that week, I was given a piece by Richard Thompson Ford about how the current application of civil rights law is actually undermining equality. First-time op/ed contributor Joe Spix turned in a beautifully succinct piece of art:

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The following week, we were running a perspective on the Ukraine by surrealist author Andrey Kurkov. I’m still not sure how it happened, but Carson Ellis was actually available and she delivered beautifully:

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Fulfilling a long standing order for us both, Oliver Munday provided art to accompany a call to end bonuses attached to banks which had been bailed out, as well as a perfect opportunity to attack the page layout to truly drive the idea home:

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Another excellent designer new to the page, Alex Merto turned in this illustration about the racial tensions simmering amidst the riots of Occupy Oakland:

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Below, Mark Pernice turned in this beauty of a piece accompanying a written warning that Silvio Berlusconi’s vestige will linger in Italian politics long after he’s resigned and gone.

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Another first timer to the page, John J. Custer gave us his take on campaign finance reform and to what degree the fate of the presidency is up for sale.

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Up until a few weeks ago, getting a call to work on a Times Op/Ed illustration was simultaneously the most exciting and harrowing invitation I could receive in the course of a given week. It’s a jarring thing to receive a call from an art director asking you to drop whatever you’re doing in order to deliver a finished piece of art (which you haven’t yet begun) to a major newspaper before the end of the day. I’m mindful of this every time I’ve called someone on the phone in the past four weeks. Arriving at solutions with the speed required for op/ed contributors is a fundamentally challenging thing. However, the experience and practice that it yields is invaluable for any kind of visual storyteller. By embracing the boundaries of the assignment, you can likely surprise yourself by thinking, refining and executing ideas with more focus, liveliness and venom which can sometimes escape when working with a more generous lead time.

Speaking for myself, working on these assignments over the years has had a substantial hand in informing my own process of generating, editing and executing ideas. Of particular significance, I notice that when I’m approached for a project these days, my heart no longer explodes into a full-tilt sprint whenever I answer the phone, which is good. For any interested students, recent grads or working artists interested in contributing to the page who haven’t yet done so, I would encourage you to get in touch. The Op/Ed page traffics in of-the-moment ideas and opinions daily, and if as an illustrator, designer or visual storyteller of any kind, you have a compulsion to create work which contributes dialogue and relevance to the here and the now, we should probably talk.

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Long time, no post. The past few months have had me mired (albeit willingly) in an ark sized boatload of new projects—the deadlines of which have conveniently stacked up upon one another in a seemingly unending row. I’ve been a longtime adherent to the belief that opportunity never presents itself at a moment of convenience and the past few months proved themselves hell-bent on reinforcing that. So, in order to avoid running the risk of this blog being mistaken for a recently abandoned tenement, here’s a spattering of what’s been happening:

1. NEW SITE (!)
First things first. It only took three years of procrastination followed by a two month crash course in Indexhibit, but I finally have a new site. The URL is the same, but the work contained therein is actually, truly, (well, mostly) current. This task had been on my design bucket list for way too long, so the fact that the majority of the heavy lifting is done is a huge personal coup. As a self proclaimed style sheet/CSS Luddite, Indexhibit is not the simplest program to wrangle my head around, however its genius lies in its protean flexibility which practically forces you to learn some basic web building principles, so (hopefully), fine tuning it going forward won’t be quite as laborious as it was for my previous one. Check it.

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2. Joe Klein & TIME

Earlier this year I was fortunate to begin working with art director Andreé Kahlmorgan at TIME Magazine illustrating bi-monthly columns for Joe Klein, a journalist who’s tenacity and quality of output has proven multiple times over that he’s not so much of a slouch. Mr. Klein’s political column for TIME, more often than not, examines current events from the perspective of a single active participant or group in the event he’s covering. To illustrate that effectively (as well as with a modicum of consistency), the illustration is approached as a conceptual portrait each week, pulling current head shots with Andreé of the players in question and providing narrative context. The turnaround time is roughly equivalent to that of an op/ed. The Obama image above was done for a springtime Klein piece about the increasingly negative and hostile portrayals of Obama that his growing detractors are using in media campaigns. More Klein pieces follow below:

Klein writing as Benjamin Netanyahu and his fly-on-the-wall perspective of the Arab Spring.

Klein on Obama’s and Paul Ryan’s fractured healthcare negotiations.

On the government’s financial mismanagement of great-in-theory programs like Head Start.

On government’s current capability for compromise in the wake of the debt ceiling debacle.

On Mitt Romney’s current second place position in GOP presidential race behind Rick Perry.

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3. Frank Bruni for the NYT Sunday Review

Upon the simultaneous retiring of the NY Times’ Week In Review and the birth of their Sunday Review, I’ve also begun trading off with Chris Brand illustrating Frank Bruni’s regular Sunday column since the section got up and running in July. Bruni, like Joe Klein, tackles current politics as well, but he applies a measured, rational wit to his outrage which allows him to deconstruct his themes in a humorous way which, in turn, gives Aviva and I some room to aim for some humor in the illustrations. The piece above accompanied one of his earliest pieces for the Sunday Review in which he opined to have children and spouses of candidates removed from the campaign platform and candidates’ list of talking points. Other recent illos for Bruni’s column follow below and Aviva Michaelov art directed all of them:

This portrait of Casey Anthony, aided with the significant help of a xerox machine, was paired with his post mortem analysis of her trial.

This one went along with an article which used the instance of an Arizona state senator sneaking a small gun into a courthouse as a springboard to address the curious state of current U.S. gun legislation.

This one explored all the ways in which Michele Bachmann is virtual catnip for media pundits. Also, her migraines. Before sending this one in, I showed it around to a handful of designers and three recoiled from it, complaining that the illustration was giving them a headache. Mission accomplished.

This was a tough one. This piece went along with Bruni’s exploration of a political candidate’s false humility—often echoing a declaration of “answering a call” to public service as opposed to simply coming clean and candidly owning their interest in money and power and control. Aviva and Joon Mo Kang helped this one along.

For an article about how ‘smart’ a politician is counts for only so much for his/her effectiveness as a politician.

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4. Overshadowed for the Washington Post

Again, for the national press. This one was an illustration for the Washington Post’s Outlook section for their cover piece concerning how the 9/11 attacks on New York perpetually overshadow the 9/11 attacks of Washington. Prior to running this, there was much discussion at the paper as to whether the ‘a-ha’ moment that the viewer gets when looking at the image arrives too late, however Kristin Lenz was an outrageously supportive advocate for this treatment and it made it through the editorial review roundly unscathed. Looking at a mini on-screen version doesn’t help to sell the point too much, so here’s a close up to bludgeon the point home:

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5. BOOKS

If I’m being truthful (and I am), these two covers above and below were completed well before this summer, but since all the titles I’ve worked on since April aren’t camera ready just yet, here are the two that just recently came out.

Instant Replay, above was done for Mr. John Gall under the Anchor Sports imprint. Being personally indifferent about football as I am, this project began with a lot of inwardly directed chortling and later gave way to a personal revelation (albeit a minor one). That revelation being that while I find watching football to be something of a chore, reading about it is awesome. Or alternately, this book is just incredibly honest, thoughtful and good. For the fellow uninitiated, right guard Jerry Kramer essentially accounts in his diary what turns out to be the Green Bay Packers’ historic 1967 season culminating with the legendary “Ice Bowl”. The book is blissfully out of touch with the modern NFL insomuch as the events portrayed are relatively scandal free and that discussion of paychecks, (small ones, incidentally) are secondary to the collective desire to perform well and win. In football circles (read: everyone except me and 27 other U.S. born citizens), the book is regarded as a bit of a playbook classic. Reading it, it’s easy to understand why that is.

Lastly, this one by Douglas Rushkoff concerns the positive and negative ways in which the internet affects both human behavior and human happiness. If one were planning to double-fist books like this, this one would make for an excellent dance partner. Done for the fine people at Soft Skull Press.

And that’s it for now. Much more on the way. Everything above represents a sliver of my summer, so I need to get outside for a minute before the weather turns cold.

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Art direction by Kelly Doe

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A new cover piece for the Week In Review is above, questioning the utility of comparing Barack Obama to any number of previous presidents. Going clockwise from the top left we have:

1. JFK

2. George H.W. Bush

3. Jimmy Carter in his library

4. LBJ

5. Some guy named Abe

6. Barry himself.

When I began, this looked like variations on a freakish, chimera-like monster—which is not to say that the final version didn’t turn out that way either—however Kelly served as an invaluable coach encouraging me to scale back and minimize the ancillary details in order to preserve the image’s natural chaos without obscuring its primary intent.

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(Early rough drafts)

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Art direction by Helen Yentus

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1. This book is equal parts hilarious and alarming. It should be read. I’m a slow reader and I polished this one off in two days between juggling work at Motown as well as other freelance assignments.

2. Jon Ronson wrote the book. He also wrote The Men Who Stare at Goats and is a guest commentator on This American Life on NPR. Although this is far from a thorough encapsulation, Ronson, in essence, profiles an imprisoned leader of a former foreign death squad, a patient in an asylum for the criminally insane and a wealthy power lusting CEO and arrives at some uncomfortable parallels with regards to how a psychopath (and psychopathy) is defined and applied in modern society. I am not a power lusting CEO, (nor am I leading a death squad, nor do I live in an asylum), but if I was hired to design this jacket based upon personal behaviors which matched the types of psychosis explored in the book, then things do not bode well for my domestic situation.

3. Riverhead did not skimp on the production touches for this one. They sprung for a combination gritty matte finish (which covers the white paper portions of the jacket) and a shiny gloss for the yellow/magenta “crazy” half, thereby giving your sense of touch a noticeable edge if you find yourself blindly scanning your shelf for this book in a dark room (which I have done). This treatment was handled beautifully. Thank you, Alex Merto.

4. As is the case with most other incredibly rewarding projects, this one did not come together quickly. Helen and I explored enough directions that by the time we arrived at the final, predatory treatment which became the approved cover, we were both sufficiently confident that no stone had been left unturned. Helen’s guidance was key. Disregarding the wholly separate directions which we tried on, a sampling of different versions of the final direction are below.
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Various alternate comps

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After much as-yet-documented exploration, arriving at the bunny vs. jungle cat combination bore one of those rare moments of consensus in which designer, art director, publisher and author all shared equal enthusiasm for the final direction. Once all was approved, proofed, printed and bound, this unsolicited note from Jon definitely didn’t hurt:

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…and exhale.

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Art direction by Josh Cochran

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Another Op/Ed for this week—this one on the balancing act between raising taxes and generating government revenue.

For a person who spends an (un)healthy amount of time behind a desk, it feels as though I’ve spent the past few weeks running very, very fast.
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Art direction by Nicholas Blechman
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Two for the Times were done this past week. The first (above) for the Book Review is an illustration paired with a critical account of the new tome about the history of Goldman Sachs and how they have miraculously, (or more accurately), suspiciously survived and emerged still resilient through the current economic crisis.

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Art direction by Aviva Michaelov

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This second one was done for an op/ed calling upon Obama to honor members of the military and government who have stood up to policies permitting torture. The authors posit that since Donald Rumsfeld and George Tenet, having both tacitly approved of enhanced interrogation techniques, have both been awarded honors by the previous president and that Obama should stand to honor the opposing voices. Aviva provided me the rare luxury of sending me the article a short while before midnight the evening before the illustration was due, so I had all night to pull my hair out trying to figure out how to solve the problem. The extra time, in this case, truly was a gift.

Also, for those who are deathly curious: ‘Lux Veritatis’ = ‘Light of Truth.’
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Art direction: Ezra Furman / Cover photo by Christopher Benbow

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In acknowledgment of the fact of there being no lazier means to describe a newer band’s sound than by comparing that sound to other bands who have come before, I’ll say that if you find merit in the music of the Violent Femmes, the Pixies, Neutral Milk Hotel, Tim Buckley, They Might Be Giants, The Posies and/or The Moldy Peaches, then you will assuredly find something to like about Mysterious Power by Ezra Furman and the Harpoons.

I’m up to my armpits in new music most days at the day job, so as a personal rule, I have to be fairly taken with the band and their music if I’m going to design something music related outside of work. Such was the case with this band. A great band made up of great guys, I’m surprised they’re not bigger. Listen up.

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Art direction: John Gall

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The November Criminals by Sam Munson is a first-person account of resident smart-ass Addison Schacht: a self-loathing, pot peddling, hyper-articulate high school senior who enlists his best friend Digger (who he emphatically swears is not his girlfriend) to help investigate the mysterious death of a fellow student who was neither their friend nor their enemy. The story is told in the form of a lengthy protracted confessional college essay addressed to the admissions board at the University of Chicago.

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Between the overall mythos of high school, Addison’s verbal cadences as well as the story’s essay structure, this cover was a gift to design for. I handed my comps off to John one day, time passed and a few months later I was informed that we had an approval for the above cover with nary an art amendment requested. A sampling of other ideas I submitted in that round went like this:

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I kept waiting for a sudden, critical about-face from the publisher sending me back to the drawing board to grind out new ideas, but the moment never arrived. The good fortune in this instance all but assured that I will never have it so easy again in my life. To further cement this certainty, neither marketing, nor the editor nor the publisher seemed to mind when Addison hijacked their back cover copy with his leaky red marker either.

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