This issue was jammed in between a couple of HUGE projects that required way more time than client connection and as a result I really didn’t get to spend as much time as I normally do on it. But, that’s not to say that the time I did spend wasn’t worth it because I really love how this one turned out. The cover and feature story is about how as you get 10 or 15 years into your career you can get stuck (actually that’s exactly how my editor pitched the story idea to us). So we kicked around a bunch of ideas and none were really jumping out as “the one” so we went back to that core idea of “being stuck” and it just worked. I developed some sketches for how this could carry across the cover and feature spread and we set about shooting it all.

So above is the cover and below is the feature spread and the final page of the feature (and facing page). The idea is the we go from a close up on the cover to a full length shot where we see the guy trying to squeeze through the headline type that he’s obviously stuck in. I orginally intended to have a really simple use of type and colour but it seemed really creepy, so we pushed the design and colours into a more “comic booky” design and that solved that problem.

Below is a spread that features the artwork of Jason Brubaker who’s work I’ve been following on his reMIND blog (if you haven’t seen it, check it out). Since I was so busy, we needed someone to come in and provide an illustration for the article. I sent Jason a quick sketch of what we thought would work the story and he produced a beautiful illustration that really jumped off the page and everyone loved. I don’t always like being so specific when I art direct – I love to see what others will come up with – but in this case my editor really wanted to keep this from being too negative.

Below, one final spread from the issue.

This issue’s cover and feature story was about the new 4-year strategy for The Co-operators so the trick was trying to find an interesting way to present this. Maybe it was because I was just back from my vacation to South Africa and had spent a lot of time in airports, but for some reason the “preparing for take-off” headline just seemed to sell things best. The cover above was shot in studio and editted by my afterwards to add some visual pop to it.

The feature spread needed to carry the idea of “taking flight” and forwards momentum a bit further. Often times I find myself falling back on my illustration skills to solve problems. So it’s always nice to really have a chance to work out a design solution which I think this spread does nicely.

The creative for the above spread was pretty tricky. The story is about auto fraud which has been in the news quite a bit around the time this issue came out. My editor really didn’t want to show anything too negative, so it was a balancing act between what you show and what you imply.

Below: two other spreads from the issue.

One of the reasons I’ve been so busy lately is that I’ve been doing a lot of extra illustration work which is really exciting. Anyway, above is the original artwork for a piece I did for The Co-operators for a strategy piece. They came to me with the concept already fleshed out, so it was really my job to make it interesting. Below is the revised painting to incorporate different colours and maple leafs for a more Canadian feel (?) and then the final piece is the art in layout. It’s nice to see how your art is handled by other people because they make decisions that you wouldn’t. I wasn’t so sure about the revised colours, but in layout I think it works pretty well – I still love how the original turned out though!

The cover and feature article this issue is actually a bit of a set up for the next issue which covers the new 4-year strategy for The Co-operators. So this one is focussed on the market research that’s informing the decisions about the future. As always, there were a bunch of competing ideas, but the “giant eyeball” won out. I’ll admit, it’s kind of freaky, but it definitely gets attention.

Above: the start of the feature (and the facing page which shows off some direct mail pieces that I designed last summer – small plug!). Below: the full feature spread.

This was a bit of an interesting problem because the proposed story was sort of clunky with various bits of information. I asked my editor if we could break it apart into chunks and really design the main spread around the information and she happily agreed. The problem was this left use with a bit of an awkward “how do we start the feature and tie it into the cover” problem. After some back and forth, we arrived at the idea that we should get the manager of the research department (who’s obviously involved in generating a lot of the content that we’re including in the story) to model for us and be “looking into the future.” The crystal ball thing seemed really cliche, so I tried to push it into a more futuristic layout which came out really well.

Below: I have always wanted to use other illustrators more often. I love doing my own stuff, but sometimes you just need a break and it’s always cool to see what someone else will come up with. Anyway, I finally convinced everyone that this was a good idea, so for the spread below we hired Dushan Milic – a super talented artist who I’ve followed for years – to cook up a piece for. We had a bunch of ideas for the story, but when I art direct I like to see what others have to offer (which often times turns out to be better than what I’ve come up with). Anyway, Dushan gave me three ideas and the one we went with is below. It’s actually a bit of a complex solution to “passing knowledge on from one generation to another” but it’s a really cool idea and you can’t let that go to waste.

Another piece of art direction this issue was the portrait in the spread below. I used a really talented photographer Eydis Einarsdottir in Vancouver who shot a beautiful photograph for me.

And then finally, here is one more spread that worked out nicely.

See you in a couple of months again…