Books

Citywide Poets 2008 : City Breaths


The latest CityWide Poets book cover, City Breaths is done! I struggled with this one for a little while. At first, the formless nature of breath led to designs that looked too much like literal smoke, which I knew was not going to fly. I searched and sketched for different ways to represent vaporous things, tucking those away as I went.

I kept pressing the question, What is 'city' breath, and what would it look like, anyway? How would it be different from anything else? That also seemed like a dead end of urban environments, gritty and strong, but sometimes unsettling. And sometimes too much like a hip-hop album.

Then I thought, Wouldn't city breath be... fresh?. I suppose it dates me a little bit (the horror!) but I felt I could make that work. I started with Andes mints, remembering the iconic mountainside that they use. I would replace the mountain with a cityscape. When I tried photographing the mints, there was something underwhelming about them, and the outline of the city on the mint I didn't think would work.

Taking a break I found an old Altoids tin, instead of the "old timey" design, it had the strongman on it, and the type was set in Myriad and a Slab Serif. That's when I got the idea here, I photographed the tin and photoshopped the cityscape and spirals representing breath, making the solid connection with the mints such that it didn't come across as smoke.

The spirals carry throughout the book, and thankfully I was able to get full-page photographs of a number of the Citywide Poets, just like with ZerO Gravity.

I think the result it successful, pairing the tongue-in-cheek humor of "fresh breath" with "fresh words" and stealing a bit from Altoids "Curiously Strong" campaign that just about everyone can relate to.

The type is Myriad, with a slight modification to have the "r" reaching for the "y".

House by Mariela Griffor

A dear friend Mariela Griffor chose one of my photographs for her book, House.



It is called Mid Michigan Palm and it was taken just outside of Ann Arbor on a frozen lake one Sunday morning.

Folding a River by Kawita Kandpal



Kawita Kandpal is a local Detroit writer who commissioned me to do the photography for her book Folding a River. She brought several items of clothing, all of which were some variant of the color blue.

One item was a large sari cloth that I photographed in a number of different ways. THe final choice was one that depicted the sari as a vast liquid landscape, and on the back as a crumpled cloth, revealing its true nature.

The galleys were designed by Sean Tai of Pagitica Design.

The Dropped Hand by Terry Blackhawk



I was commissioned by local writer Terry Blackhawk — founder and executive director of InsideOut Literary Arts Project to design her book The Dropped Hand

While it could be construed that I took the title of the book literally with the typesetting, the mood of the type to me conveys the deeper pensiveness and melancholy of the book. There is loss, love and, grief and joy in her words and I wanted the type to be configured in a manner that was sympathetic to her themes.

The artwork was contributed by Sophia Rivkin.

The book was released in May of 2007 by Marick Press.

View a preview of The Dropped Hand

Citywide Poets 2007 : Fresh Ink


I created this cover for the 2007 Citywide Poets. Unlike the rest of InsideOut's books, no artwork is made for the book. So instead I'm free to make whatever I want based on the title.

For these I tend to take on Bob Gill's approach of redefining the problem.

For Zero Gravity, I asked myself what would a performance in zero gravity look like? I chose the image of the microphone as a focal point, since besides the performer nothing else is on stage.

For Fresh Ink I arrived at this solution, asking myself How could ink be fresh? and photoshopped this image together evoking the memory of fresh squeezed juice with the visceral spattering of ink.

Changing Faces (2007)


For 2007 I designed two books. This is one of them, for Coffey Middle School. One nice thing about designing for the same school is that the name stays the same but the art usually changes dramatically, especially several years later when all the previous students have left.

ZerO Gravity : A Citywide Poets Anthology



InsideOut published the first Citywide poets anthology in 2006. The book featured work from the current year and a retrospective from past poets.

It was larger than most of the other books, plus there was an intention to sell it in book stores. Along with the book was an audio CD with performances by 2006 poets. All the photography was done by me at their Slam Tryouts in Detroit. Four of the poets were voted to advance to the finals in NYC (in 2005 it was San Fransisco).

I was extremely excited to design this book. It was 84 pages, with a 4C cover and Pantone flood on the inside cover, plus it came with matching CD jacket and CD silkscreen. I wanted these students to feel like rock stars, so I even put up a promotional site for them as well.

To design this cover, I actually set up a microphone and stand and dangled the cord from the ceiling via strings. The resulting photographs were never quite convincing in terms of lighting (I don't own any hotlights) but they were the basis for the perspective and shapes ultimately created on the cover. So while what you see are shapes created via illustrator and photoshop, they were derived from an actual photograph of dangling cables. The microphone & stand are taken as is from a photograph, however; that was a separate shot.



Buy the book and CD - contact InsideOut to find out how! It's only $5.00.

The World Through Our Eyes (2005)



Detroit Open School is my alma mater. I spent more over nine years in that school, from Kindergarden through eighth grade, and probably a couple of years before I was even in school because my brother went there too.

When I discovered that the school would be in our 2005 lineup, I was ecstatic to design the book for them. I got to meet some of my former teachers!

Some of the students drew fantastic creatures which created tweens and turned into flip-book style animations (something I used to do a lot in the margins of my books). They run on all sides of The World Through Our Eyes.

View a banner I created using some of the animations.

All Eyes On Us (2006)



Not two year prior to this book's design, Longfellow had a great art teacher and art program. In 2005 I visited the school to do a quick art activity with the students and I was led by a room that had two or three large electric kilns, big tables...but no art teacher.

In 2006 there still was no art teacher. So the problem this year with Longfellow's book was that I was handed very little art. But a little abstract piece caught me eye:



and so I made the best of it, carrying it throughout the layout.

View the book as a PDF.

Coming from Within (2006) & Above Not Beneath (2006)



This year I had 11 students, some of which couldn't quite get it together to design a cover. Some lacked initiative, others just got waylaid trying to get to class. Whatever the reason, I ended up designing two books covers, while the students finally pulled through and finished the final interior layout.

I got some help on Above Not Beneath from dedicated art teacher Ann Hegerty.

(No PDFs, since I didn't design the interior layout)

Tinta Corriendo de mi Boca (2005)



The ink runs from my lips...

One of the students in my class started to design Tinta Corriendo de mi Boca but was unable to complete it due to transportation and grade-related issues. She got so far as to design to cover, but the interior was left to me. I was happy to finish it, since it involved Shadow Puppets that were created by the students with help from artist and Queen of the Random Job, Bethany Mooradian.

View the book as a PDF.

Be Anything (2005)



Schulze Elementary School is a great new school, in a relatively new building - but they don't have an art program! Program Director (writer and good friend) Robert Fanning and I went in, armed with clay and paint and had the students create their own "be anything" creature - and the results were outrageous!

The cover is a collection of some of the best sculptures, compiled in Photoshop from individual photos of each sculpture.

View the book as a PDF.

Wear Consciousness (2005)



Hutchins middle school was creating its second book with their new title - previously the title of their book was "Dream House." Most often, schools and writers choose color art, understandably, since the cover is full color. But as I leafed through the artwork for that year, a simple pencil drawing, a quick picasso-ish sketch caught my eye. It resembled a mask and I felt it fit the title well. The cover shows this mask with confetti streams of the poems inside springing forth.

The best part, though, is the interior which swoops and swirls the titles and authors in spirals that create movement on and across pages.

View the book as a PDF.

Talking Hands (2003)



My first book was for Davis Aerospace Technical High School, and I was fortunate enough to work with the talented Rebecca Dosch on it. As a pair, we really worked well together, deliberating over which pieces of art and poems should go in the book and where. I was glad to see, in my first experience, that it could be a bonding experience with the writer.

Davis did not have an art program, so I took in some clay, paints and pencils and had the 9th-11th grader create simple art with just a few basic prompts. One student created the cover art's flowing misture of primary colors and I added the handprint that was extracted from a student's digital photograph. The words inside the hand are taken from the students' work.

(PDF not available yet...it's a long story.)

Changing Faces (2004)



Coffey Middle School had some wonderful artwork submitted in 2004, but for whatever reason is usually ends up being pen or pencil - very little color. This cover art was actually a pencil drawing, but it struck me right away as a perfect compliment to the book's title - with a little change. The faded color is my addition, alluding the idea of memory and time, where both fade with respect to one another. I tapped into the emphemeral nature of the butteryfly by using it as a persistent design element.

But truly what makes the cover special to me is not the color, but the expression on the little girl's face, as if to say, "I'm growing up....aren't I?"

I also designed a cover for 2007.

Beautiful Dream (miyume)



I created this book for my niece Idalia out of her own artwork. The catalyst was the art itself and her name which means "beautiful dream". The book was printing and hand made by Alex Appella. She runs her own business in Cordoba, Argentina called Transient Books. I found them via Google and when I approached her about a custom book she was delighted. She also makes wonderful handbound journals.

I hope that my nephew starts creating art because I'd like to do one for him too.

Shimmering Stars (2006)



This past year I worked on five book covers and three interiors. Of all of them this year, this was my favorite. I combined the artwork of four students to create this otherworldly space.

View the book as a PDF.
Note that the work is ©2006 InsideOut and all of its respective student authors.