Thursday, August 05, 2010

Oil Spill Op-Ed

Had the pleasure of being on The New York Times Op-Ed page today. A nice personal narrative about a man swimming in his Michigan lake despite a tragic oil spill, though much smaller than the one in the Gulf.

Sent two different ideas that tried to work with the page layout a bit. Loyal readers will remember that I had an oil-related Op-Ed killed a month ago, so I tried to recycle the aesthetic of those ideas.




Art Director Aviva went with A, and my first attempt used bloopy watercolor for the oil plume. It was ok, but I felt like a big black graphic shape was going to be needed to hold the page.



I tried a second time, this time using india ink and it was a big improvement. So here is the final page all together with copy and the swimmer (and buoy).

6 comments:

Lauren Castillo said...

Wow, great job John~~What a beautiful piece!

Mike said...

It's great! I saw this on the online Op-Ed page but I had no idea it was this gigantic and integrated with the text...I wish the online Op-Ed page had some system for showing how the illustrations are integrated, because sometimes you really miss out these amazing layouts.

OWEN FREEMAN said...

This came out brilliantly, especially how the printed inks echo the feel of the original drawing process.

Harris Hammersmith said...

Great concept and execution. Very different from your normal work. Has that old Disney (lost in the scary woods) feel to it.

DB Dowd said...

John, I saw this in the paper and meant to mention it the other day--great work! Love that hand, and the implicit Jaws quote.

NJ Speks said...

Was the Ferngully feel an intentional reference? Or has that sublime work of genius rooted itself so deep in the collective unconscious that we can't help but find its influence creep into our own works?