judges’ picks >> dj stout

5. MARC ENGLISH DESIGN
Before he launched his design career, Marc English studied music composition and arrangement at the Berklee College of Music. Now the founder of Austin’s Marc English Design, he recently found an unlikely similitude between design and the musical pursuit of his previous life. Speaking about his work on the DVD packaging for Gus Van Sant’s My Own Private Idaho, English says: “That’s exactly what this was. This was composing and arranging someone else’s photography to help tell a story in print that’s actually told on film.”

In fact, there is a musical quality to the packaging, which includes a book, two DVDs, and slipcase. The package design cross-references the movie’s themes—which include narcolepsy, homosexual prostitution, and Shakespeare’s Henry IV—as if the package were a contrapuntal, albeit visual, arrangement. In the 60-page book, English’s decorative fonts, which evoke the 16th and 17th centuries in which Shakespeare wrote, play against contemporary stills from the film.

Juror DJ Stout, partner at Pentagram in Austin, was impressed by English’s attention to detail, which he describes as “cared for.” One of the more provocative details among these cared for elements appears on the cover. In the center of a decorative O that completes the word Idaho is the rendering of a bent-over (look closely) cherub. “He’s offering up his portal,” says English, with relish, “which is partially what the film is about.”

English’s references to antiquity don’t merely ape the vernacular of a bygone era; his sources are authentic. The book’s cover has the texture of worn leather, which comes from a scan of an 1853 psalmody. That ribald O is a real Venetian letterform, circa 1500, while the flourishing P that appears throughout the book was designed by Nürnberg’s Paulus Franck-Schatzkammer in 1601. “What he’s done,” says Stout, “is reinterpret these classical elements in a very contemporary way, which is admirable. It’s easy to study up on a classic look and imitate the genre. But none of this is decorative trickery. Marc is communicating something more.”
Tiffany Meyers

Marc English Design
CREATIVE DIRECTOR: Marc English
ART DIRECTOR: Sarah Habibi
DESIGNERS: Mina Miyara, Niru Singhal, Rebecka English COPYWRITERS: Amy Taubin, JT LeRoy, Lance Loud, River Phoenix, Keanu Reeves, Gini Sikes, Paige Powell
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Eric Alan Edwards, John Campbell
CLIENT: The Criterion Collection
CONTACT: www.marcenglishdesign.com