Wednesday, November 30, 2005

It looks good, it must be queer - Production Designer of the Year

In recognition of design excellence in 2005 by an Australian. Web site design, book design, lettering, promotional materials, et al.

Phosphorescent Comics for Witch King
I think Karen Howard and Annette Kwok had a big hand in putting the promotional package together for this long gestating project. Way back starting off with a preview/ issue 0 to get people interested (I hope the left over issues get used for freecomic book day). The press release was quite nice, the preview pdf worked ok, the website http://www.witchking.net.au/ looks cool and the cover looks nice. Though i haven't held the finished book in my hands - so far so good.

Katie Huang for Generations 2005
Just slick. A well balanced thought-out design featuring a cover that showcases the various artists, an insightful forward and made with quality materials. A better website and more convenient URL would be nice and more publicity, though on the later I don’t travel the manga circles much so there may be heaps of publicity I just don’t hear it.

Tonia Walden for Meus Officium est Abyssus, A Pirate Anthology and Corpse in the Chapel

I initially wrote Tonia Toddman - which isn't far wrong. With very little money Tonia makes gorgeous looking books. And they always match the curtains.

Darren Close for Ozcomic Magazine issues 5 and 6
I layed out issues 3 and 4 and it almost killed me - it didn't help that i was rushing to make a supanova deadline. But i discovered laying out a magazine is hard; there's articles, pictures, photos, boxes, captions all which have to be positioned so it runs smoothly and looks good. I have trouble matching socks. So it was hard for me, plus I don’t really have an eye for detail. However, Issues 5 and 6 look pretty good, all due to Darren's hard work.

Aaron O'Donnell for Mickey Mouse Spider
Like Tonia's stuff this is put together by hand, but this is full colour (really well coloured at that). Its a well designed package with eye catching cover, shiny pages, the various short stories are easily seperated and distinguishable (which is sometimes hard for single author anthologies) and the colouring is excellent.

Simon Sherry's cover to Something Wicked
I wasn't keen on the design of the whole book, the black shiny pages were unsettling (i think its because i'm old) but that cover would make me or anyone want to buy it. It just screams , "buy me horror fans". Simon's cover to Dreams of Tomorrow is also really good but it didn't really sit well with the theme of the book (in my opinion).

Otherwise; DeeVee Flange almost made the list but it didn't pop and Bobby N's Withheld is a nice package but I didn't think the cover stood out particularly well. The cover to the 2 Hairbutt releases were quite effective as well.

1 comment:

Mark Selan said...

actually, that's a good point - the whole 24hr suite of website, promotional material and so forth could sit in this category (though i think the achievement category covers it good enough).

In terms of judging, I'm only one vote in the five (for the jury voted categories) and in the popular vote, again, i'm only one voice in the forest.