Penguin Horror cover illustrations

In honor of Halloween, I found these covers in Communication Arts. They are by Paul Buckley for Penguin Classic Books. Note the names of the books - Frankenstein, The Raven, Haunted Castles and The Haunting of Hill House. They are part of a six-volume series that Penguin is printing.

The article makes some good points, it says "Forget gory special effects - there's nothing creepier than a good scary story."

Buckley said that with his designs, he was focusing on some of the main elements of the individual books, that give us "the kind of chills we got when reading spooky stories as kids." I (Lisa) have to admit that the raven did kind of creep me out in the story.

I don't know if I have read this one or not, but, now I think I will have to look it up and see what it's about. Looks like it must be about some kind of mad man or something.

I haven't read The Haunting of Hill House either. But, I've seen all of the movies & I like the one with Vincent Price the best.

These covers are being done for the special-edition hardcovers and are being printed with neon inks and "ominous black-stained" page edges. These will have a modern twist to them, Guillermo del Toro, "a lifetime fan of horror literature," did the editing and wrote the introductions.

Goncalo Viana, Illustrator

I was looking for something a little bit different this week...I came up with this set CD covers that were illustrated by Goncalo Viana the Fado Alma Lusitana collection. They were in the Communication Arts Illustration Annual 54 (May/June 2013).

Each of the images have a bit of a "quilt" look to it someplace, whether it's in the background, scarf, tile work, etc.

The images have a folksy feel to them but, with a modern edge. 

For more of her illustrations, please check out her website.

Robin Luebs - Illustrator

I went to the "Meet The Pros" on Wednesday, October 16, and was privileged to meet Illustrator Robin Luebs and get to hear her speak.  She brought a copy of each of her books for us too look at, had a slide-show presentation, spoke and had some of her "dummy" books that get sent to publishers when you are promoting and idea and trying to sell it.

"How Do You Say Good Night?" is one that she did the illustration work on. She told us how she taught herself how to paint the fur on all of the different animals and how she really enjoyed doing that part. This book has a set of animals going across each two page spread & they are different on every spread as you go through the book.

 
"Please Pick Me Up, Mama!" was Robin's first book that she not only did the illustrations, but also wrote the story, too. It is about a little girl raccoon and her Mama.

"Who said Coo?" was a book that Robin was able to do with her twin sister, Deborah Ruddell. Her sister wrote the story and Robin did all of the illustrations. It was a great experience for her to get to work with her sister. She said it was something that they had been trying to do and it finally became a reality.

Robin is, of course, currently working on another book that I'll look forward to seeing in the future.


She has a "fun" section on her website that has printables on it that you can share with little ones. Please check her out at Robin Luebs - Children's Book Author and Illustrator.

Mother Goose - pictures by Gyo Fujikawa

I've been thinking a lot about what illustrations have meant to me over the years. The first picture is a scan of my "Mother Goose" book. It's a big one - about 9 1/4" x 12" and the copyright 1968, which is when I was four years old, and a very influential age.

I have always loved to look at these illustrations, and shared them with my son when he was young, too.

Please excuse the yellowing around the edges, after all it is 45 years old. Haha!

The second and third pictures are of some of the full color illustrations found in the book. It is set up with 2 facing pages being black & white, and then the next 2 facing pages being in color.

I like the way that not every page is set up the same way. Notice the second picture is just very sporadic while the third picture is much more grid-like in layout.

I also like, on the color images, the way the lines aren't "harsh" looking. It doesn't look like someone simply colored in a coloring book page like some children's illustrations do.

In the fourth picture you'll see some of her black and white illustrations. These, although not in color, still have a great deal of detail. Just look at the basket of flowers and you'll see what I'm talking about. 

I'm not the only one that appreciates this book, I'm including a link to "Book of the Week" which will show you more.

Fresh Air Farms

This caught my eye right away. I love the way it looks like a barn floating in the air...the bright red, which used to be used on barns everywhere, and the hint of green in the other colors. I didn't even need to know what it was for, I just liked the design. Come to find out, it's an event location for things like company outings, reunions, weddings, etc. I would never have thought that it would be for that.

I first saw this in an edition of Communication Arts (Design Annual 54) and then ran across it on the web when I was doing some research for something else. So, it was "fate" that I would include it on one (or two) of my blogs.

The top image is just their basic logo, which is what drew me in to begin with.

The second image is the front and back of their business card. Isn't it cute? They even have some embossing going on with the clouds to give it some texture (very expensive to do, if you didn't know). But, they do save some money because it looks like this might just be a two color job (with there being shading and transparencies). I also like the fact that it's not your typical 3 1/2"x2", square corner, business card. They would also have to pay more for the die-cut shape.

I included the third image simply because I ran across it online and thought it showed the embossing and die-cut quite well. 

Their website is a thing of beauty!!! I'll be covering it in next week's blog for GDS 220. But, if you're interested, please check it out.

Fresh Air Farm