Judging an issue by its cover
After two years on the BSR Design Team, I took over as Art Director to head the layout of BSR Issues 39 and 40. With an extremely talented team of scientist-artists, who took care of illustrating the articles, we assembled two beautiful magazines. I had the priviledge as AD to illustrate the cover art for the magazines during this time.This Art Director journey was marked by a transition to a virtual setting due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which is reflected on the Issue 39 cover, followed by a return to “normal” life for Issue 40.
BSRxCOVID-19
Picture this: you’re a BSR Design Team member in a meeting. The Art Director pulls out printed magazine spreads—still warm from the printer—and you spend several hours poring over everyone’s work. Everyone’s art is in various stages of progress, but with each meeting and each critique your illustration, and the magazine, comes together.
Fast forward to Fall of 2020. You’ve been staring at Zoom screens for most of the year now. Like most organizations, the BSR transitioned into a virtual format. The in-person interactions and feedback are gone, but we made the best of it. This is the sort of feeling I was trying to capture for the Issue 39 cover.
Papercrafting a fault line
“Good luck!” said the cashier at The Inkstone. I thought that was a strange thing to say when I told him I was going to papercraft a cover for the magazine—little did I know that I would need it. This cover was made by cutting the intricate coastlines of the Bay Area from colored paper and recreating the San Andreas fault as tears in the paper.