I was really inspired by the new Marian Bantjes book when I set out to design the Top Dentists feature in the February issue of Seattle Met. We had no money left in the budget to commission an illustrator or photographer to do custom work for us, so I illustrated the whole package myself. I set a new personal record for use of modified stock: There are 120 different photos of mouths used throughout this package.
Here’s a detail shot of that flowery background.
The cover story for February is Best Asian Restaurants. I met with photographer Paul Kooiman to show him my sketches a couple days before the shoot.
This cover is a landmark for me in that it’s the first time I’ve ever worked with special ink. All the gold here is printed in metallic.
Here it is on the stands. My buddy André Mora snapped this shot.
We secured the chopsticks with clamps, and food stylist Tyler Rebman built these dishes up layer by layer.
My sketches for the feature opener:
For the fortune’s lucky numbers, I used the issue date: 02•2011.
Paul came up with the great idea to do a really bountiful and beautiful grid shot. We set up the composition with handwritten placeholders as Tyler whipped up all these dishes at an amazing pace.
I bought a book on Japanese design motifs to get some ideas for the drop cap and page frames.
I hired Thomas Pitilli to illustrate the Power Lines article this month. But first I sketched out a concept to give him some direction.
Here’s how the final turned out. I added a little texture to it in Photoshop for flavoring.
And finally, this month’s Quote Unquote features a real life astronaut. I thought it’d be funny to have him pose in front of the tackiest space background we could find, wrinkles and all. I was a little worried he’d object to it, but he had a great sense of humor about it all. John Keatley photographed this almost a year ago, but we’re finally running it now.
