Octavia E. Butler's Kindred
Some behind-the-scenes images from my redesign of the Kindred book cover.
Joe Nesbo's The Son
This moody crime thriller deserved a moody look on social media. It's filled with allegorical references to the Bible (the "son" of the title, Sonny Lofthus, is described as someone who has "healing hands" and takes "your sins upon himself and didn't want anything in return"), so this short motion piece nods to those Messianic allusions (crosses, red stigmata-like drops, etc). I don't do selfies often, but that's me in the hoodie (in the video, not the published book cover).
The publisher's cover design.
Robert Caro's Master of the Senate
I read mostly on a Kindle now, but when I was reading this paperback on the subway, a stranger shook their finger at me and said "pretentious." I completely understand that perception of this book (a 1,200-page "Great Man"-version of history about a dead president during his decade in the Senate), but it really is marvelous and absorbing and deserves its Pulitzer and National Book Award. It chronicles many of the events and problems (racism and civil rights, the South's political shift, congressional gridlock) that have led to today's bizarre, fervid politics.
Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life
At the time I designed this motion spot, I was obsessed with Kyle Cooper's work (famous for Se7en's opening-title sequence), so it probably goes a bit overboard with all the bones, text-marked skin and upturned cars. That said, these motifs are consistent with the novel's themes of trauma, memory, and the pains and pleasures of the body. The book's famous cover shows Peter Hujar's 1969 photo of a man in mid-orgasm, but without context, he looks to be in pain; in French, an orgasm is called "le petit mort," or "the little death," so even the title of the book is layered in irony and allusion. My design tried to honor some of the book's themes; by utilizing many layers and blending modes (perhaps too many!), I hoped to evoke the palimpsest of memory and its ghostlike pull on the present. Friendship, a central theme of the book, is also reflected here, though more subtly, since some of the still images I used were photos I took of my friends during summers in Fire Island.
