Wednesday 1 April 2009

Experiments with Experimental Manga

..and, very briefly, while I'm linking elsewhere, Eric Skillman talks interestingly (to design tragics, anyway) about the best ways of fitting type and great illustration together as he works to create a series design for a new series of manga compendia coming soonish from Top Shelf.

The final cover design:



Some of the variations considered along the way:






While we're looking at Top Shelf, here are some particularly eye-catching covers from their list of forthcoming releases.



2 comments:

Ian Koviak said...

SECOND THOUGHTS is really remarcable from an illustration standpoint, but also the type.

Those initial covers all look good. They could have all worked and stood out as unique and different. Beautiful art.

The least intrusive design with the masthead tucked in the illustration was my favorite. I especially like the suggested spine treatments...

JRSM said...

I agree with you: leaving as much of the illustration uncovered as possible seems the best option--and the spines were lovely, too. It still took my Western eyes a few seconds to realise why the covers seemed to be on the "back", though.