20. CHRONICLE BOOKS
“As a designer, I was attracted to his work,” says designer Brett MacFadden of illustrator and comic book writer Adrian Tomine, “because the line quality is really graphic, the colors are beautiful, and because I’d been a fan of his books, I felt I understood his design aesthetic.” When it came to creating a series of postcards, “mostly the design was his art, so the biggest job was creating a consistent package for his work,” MacFadden notes.

There were some technical complications, as well. “The way Adrian produces the art is that he draws the outline, scans it in and adds layers for color and shadows in the computer, which are then stacked in QuarkXPress for output,” according to the designer. “For every postcard in the Optic Nerve series, each layer had to be scaled down to fit, even those that started as posters, while maintaining registration. Trying to figure out mathematically how far down each needed to go was a challenge.” Of course, designing for a designer presents another kind of challenge.

“A lot of the projects we work on at Chronicle, [the book designer] is the expert, aesthetically,” says MacFadden. “When you’re dealing with someone you admire who has strong skills, that creates a shift in that relationship and you look to them for expertise as well.”
Laurel Saville