Pre BEA Woes

This time of the year is apparently always insane, although I really can't remember how last year went. Anyway, to give you an idea as to what I have on my schedule, here's a list:

Produce a Corporate Identity for International Book Management
Create, Print and Have Delivered, marketing materials for 3 of our authors at BEA
Layout and Design this years releases catalog.
Design our BEA Booth for LA and take care of the ordering and shipping of materials.
Maintain 1.5 webcomics on the site writersnewsweekly.com (I say 1.5 because I'm only doing art for the one and the other I'm doing both the art and writing)

Each of those things has a number of tiny pieces to them that are slowly driving me insane. The logo design for International Book Management is my largest concern at the moment. I want the company launch fully prepared with a solid identity for itself. It should be able to convey exactly what it is and how it does business from the moment you see any of the marketing material for it. I've spent a great deal of thought on the matter but my ideas keep getting shot down and it's becoming frustrating. Here are some of the logo ideas in black and white to establish a solid form.





None of these have garnered much response. I'll be working on some new ones this week. Below you can see some of the choice covers for this year. These are the ones that I'm happy with and had the most say over.









And here are some more covers that didn't make it, but I prefer over the final.





You can see I took the colors from this version of The Cruelest Cut and applied to The Frame once I knew this one wouldn't be used.

Here are some of the interior designs for this years catalog.






Here's some 3d renders of what I have planned for this years BEA Booth.








And just for kicks here are the two comic strips I'm working on. The first I write and illustrate and the second I just do line art. Coloring is done by Nicole Allen.


So I'm pretty busy.

More Fun With Grids

I'm headlong into my grid addiction and it's only getting worse. I've finished one of the books I was reading on the subject and have plunged myself into the next. Dissecting the finer points of font usage and spacing while encompassing everything into one coherent form. These are my most recent en devours. Ads for Charles Pero to be featured in RTIR, a magazine that features potential guests for talk shows on tv or radio. I'm not satisfied really with any of these except the dark one.

New Design

I've been very big into grid systems lately and have been working my way through some books on the subject. The two in particular which spurred my interest were Grid Systems in Graphic Design and The Graphic Artist and His Design Problems. Both books are by Swiss designer Josef Muller-Brockmann, a man who has laid the foundation for a great deal of modern graphic design. Here are a few mock ads I've composed for work. We'll soon be launching International Book Management Co. and I've been trying to design a corporate identity for the company.