“Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anquish bring us together.” – Eugene Ionesco (1909-1994)
Designing book covers for Weiser’s introduced me to the joys and minor frustrations of graphic design; working to ‘specs’ which put limitations on certain aspects of creativity.
The first question I always asked when taking on an assignment for a new book cover from Jim Wasserman, Weiser’s office manager, was “how many colors do I have to work with this time?”
Depending on print run and potential sales, that answer varied between a single color to two, three, or even four separate colors. Occasionally Don Weiser would agree to the added expense of 4-color-process camera-separation. Those were the projects to which I looked forward because they allowed the freedom of creating an original full-color piece of art, instead of printer-ready mechanicals using overlays of acetate to indicate areas of color, a job that was usually pretty tedious. Nevertheless, I enjoyed exploring what I could do with such limitations. Above, three examples each of one-, two- and three-color covers done while working for Weiser’s.
{ 0 comments… add one now }