Fiction Illustration in the New Yorker

I got a call from Awan Jordan, an illustration editor at the New Yorker, who wanted me to illustrate a story for an upcoming issue. The story (The Fragments by Joshua Ferris) involved a New York snowstorm, a relationship, and a stream of cell phone conversations, overheard in fragments like a Greek chorus. Awan suggested including handwritten bits of these conversations in the art. I welcomed the idea and got to work. I've been working with layers and patterns of handwritten text for some time in my art, and I've always done a lot of diagrams and maps. Quick, informal longhand seemed to work, imitating the feel of intimate conversation.

The first idea was to create a palimpsest of overlapping handwritten fragments, which I did several different ways. I liked the effect, but it seemed more like overlapping dialogue, like in an Altman movie, rather than a series of discrete fragments of private talk.

So I thought of something else, something I'd never tried before: inverting the lettering and shifting it into color and cutting and pasting it together. I'd do this in shapes rather than in strips. It's hard to do a sketch of a collage. It makes more sense to do the finished art right off, to see if it works. This is what I was doing. I'd gotten the call at the end of the week and promised sketches on Monday, planning instead to show several finished illustrations and see which they liked, reworking them as needed. This color illustration of bright lettering collaged together was invented as I was trying it out, and it worked pretty nicely. There was a bright Miro-ish playfulness to the shapes and the palette (including a certain amount of pale and gray colors made the other colors brighter and also helped echo the feel of the snowstorm in the story). The composition suggested one large voice balloon comprised of all these simultaneous conversations, all these relationships working themselves out in the air during this snowstorm. (I added snowflakes to this version too.)

This seemed perfect to me, but it didn't resemble the style sample Awan had liked initially, an overlapping diagram in two tones of blue that I'd sent him a few months ago. I went to bed loving the bright collage I'd done, but half of my mind thinking of how I might create something more in the style he'd suggested. Next day I rewrote the bits of dialogue and inserted them into voice balloons, shifting the line into the two blue tones from the style sample he'd liked, and assembled them on top of the earlier palimpsest that I'd also shifted into cool wintry blue shades. Then I inserted a semi transparent layer behind the voice balloons to help them show up better. 

This is the one that ran in the magazine this week. Awan had the clever idea of inserting the story's title into a voice balloon in the middle of the page. Brilliant touch.

When it came in the mail my wife said "After years of submitting your stories to them, you can finally say you've had your writing published in the New Yorker." (She's much wittier than I am.)

"18"

 Madeline turned 18 today. This is the card I drew.

 

I drew this M on the envelope.

An Overused Word

A couple of years ago I did a lot of drawing for a retail client in New York. As usual it was more than they could ever use. Most never got past the pencil stage. Luckily I hang onto pencils. I ran across a few of them in a folder the other day and got to playing with them. How do you make a cliché like "SALE" fresh and new? How do you make it eye-catching? You play with it. Like a jazz artist playing variations on a familiar tune.

Every Day

"He that has and a little tiny wit--
With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,--
Must make content with his fortunes fit,
For the rain it raineth every day."

This song from Shakespeare was running through my head while I was doing this bit of lettering and decorating it with leaves and flowers. It's from Lear (although I remember it better from the Richard Eyre film version of Twelfth Night.) Whatever: it will almost suffice for a present day that has very little philosophy in it. Do your work, every day, rain or fair weather. And enjoy it.

A Drawing About Work

First of all, this is not me. I haven't the muscle to model this kind of drawing. I did this drawing earlier in the week. Typically, I was working on Labor Day. (My European client celebrated labor day on the first of May the way the rest of the world does.) There's a bit of homage here to Ben Shahn, but also to Studs Terkel and Woody Guthrie and Springsteen and to the real working men and women all over, lifting and hauling things I don't have the muscles for. Work is why we get up in the morning.

Handmade Covers

When a book I want to read has a cover I dislike I wind up disliking the book, not wanting to read it. Does this make me superficial? Am I fussy? Reading is a sensual experience, which means it's visual too. What are eyes for? When I hate a cover I redo it. I cover it up and do a cover design of my own. The manila envelope is a bit primitive, but I like the feel of the paper, and the color reminds me of all the SASE's that went out and came back with short stories I'd written. I've used some of these. I don't get elaborate. Usually it's simple penmanship––or pencilmanship. This cover obscures an ugly cheap paperback edition from the 1980s. I decided Nancy Mitford deserved better.

Sometimes I pick up a pencil differently, with two fingers instead of three opposing the thumb. The hand draws less well without the full group I'm used to using. When you look at the hand it doesn't seem like all the fingers even have a job to do. A couple of them appear to be doing nothing, but if you remove one the line looks odd; interesting but looser, less clear, a bit drunken. The pinky finger never does anything, but I've never considered lopping it off. If all four fingers and thumb are used to write or draw they form a fist and fists have no fluidity of motion.

I like how the line looks close up.


















And closer up

Spring finally arrived and left again

I waited to post this till it had stopped snowing, but today it's predicted to hit 85. Summer already.

Alphabetismo

Much of illustration is making one thing look like something else. I see resemblances everywhere, and letterforms are so deeply imprinted it's no surprise that I see them in everyday things. To make a lettered title more interesting I'll sometimes substitute a thing for a letter, a palm tree for a T, a teepee for an A, in rebus-fashion. Turning men into semaphores is a challenge.

Half Title

This cookbook for Chronicle was one of the most enjoyable projects I've ever worked on. This was the half title, which is the page before the title page, an appetizer, an opportunity to play with lettering a little. It added nothing to the book. Just decoration––decorative fun. Like radishes you carve into rosebuds.

City Maps

I did this map for a corporate client sometime in the 90s. It's always been a favorite of mine. The art director was Megan Taylor. Since it was the centerfold of the publication, Megan had the clever idea of doing the title lettering in a pop-up, which was fun. It's exciting to see what art directors might do to take my art to another level.

A city map presents a whole different set of demands from a regional map. Which streets to show, which to leave out. Which landmarks to illustrate, and how to integrate these illustrated elements in a way that doesn't confuse the eye. I like to think of the street grid as a floor painting on which these illustrated elements are choreographed. Map illustration is more than a simple rendering of a place; it requires re-imagining it. I think it's important to have a rationale like this, a set of rules, so that the concept doesn't get muddled or too elaborate. After many years drawing maps, these rules and tricks have become second nature to me, shaping how I visualize a place. When I read about travel I always look for a map, always want one. I need to know where I am, and where the writer is leading me.

HOLIDAY (happy)

To be less trite and a bit more offbeat, I decided to put "Holiday" on the cover and the "Happy" inside. Anyway, this was our holiday card this year. Beautifully letterpressed by the Cranky Pressman.

L O V E

I painted this for my wife for our anniversary last week. Sometimes instead of a clever or disarming metaphor it's nice to just spell it out. (Illustrated lettering is an interesting solution for book titles and for magazine articles too.)