Magic with Cards

I finally got around to taking a class at SVA. Originally, I wanted to take a silk-screening class, but I decided to start with something more practical. Since more of my paid work has involved design, I decided to learn fundamentals by enrolling in Basic Graphic Design.

This class focuses on the creative process more than anything else, which is great because creativity can apply to pretty much anything. We don’t get bogged down in technique; some people bring in their work done up in markers and pencil and it’s okay as long as the ideas are sound. This is exactly what I wanted, because later I’ll take some classes that deal more with technique, but right now I want to learn to formulate solid ideas.

For our second homework assignment, we had to design three covers for the classic card trick book Magic with Cards by Garcia and Schindler. We worked from the original memo specifying the cover design. Each design would elaborate on different cover copy (title, author, and subtitle) using creative techniques taught in class.

Subtitle

This was a very exciting project, especially compared to our first assignment of bank loan pamphlets (boooring!). I got two of my ideas sitting in class as the professor explained the assignment. The following cover together, however, was a last minute effort that I threw together three hours before class. Using the subtitle for inspiration, I interpreted "miracles" as "turning water into cards". I took a photo of my "ordinary" kitchen faucet, a photo of cards taped to black poster board, and Photoshopped it into this image of water transforming into playing cards:

We spend an hour or so during each 3-hour session presenting our work to the class. The professor thought my idea was fun, but he thought it was conceptually a bit "left-of-center". (What can I do? That’s me. All my ideas are left-of-center!) Also, as was true for about 95% of the examples, the professor criticized this for "dividing the page". He marked it up how he thought it could be improved. Luckily, we don’t submit our work officially til the end of the semester, so I can make these revisions. If I were to spend more time on this, I’d probably reshoot it at a better angle, perhaps with a pitcher instead of a faucet…but I don’t have time for that.

Author

This idea made me laugh just thinking about it, and even more so creating it. I made the authors Garcia and Schindler two rabbits performing a classic act of magic: sawing the lady in half. I transformed a Queen of Hearts into a sexy magician’s assistant. In a way, this drew inspiration from all three cover copy elements, symbolizing card magic and the miracle of rabbits using tools! Given the obvious Alice In Wonderland overtones, I styled this piece as one of those soft-cover publications we all had to read in high school:

Unfortunately, my styling inspiration also mimicked bad layout, and I was ripped for "dividing the page" again. The professor got a good laugh from the illustration. At some point, I’ll "remix" the layout. I’ve got some ideas, but I need to let it rest and come back to it later.

Title

For the title Magic with Cards, I decided to symbolize magic with potion bottles and cards with the suits labelled on the bottles. I couldn’t bear to use any of the cliché symbols for magic out there, wands, magician hats, white gloves, etc. I thought of Harry Potter and Snape’s office, and that led me to the idea of potions:

I spent a good 18 hours on this, including shopping for the bottles, creating the labels, improvising softboxes for lighting, photoshopping in smoke, and whatnot. After all that, the professor was rather ho-hum about it. Again, he thought I was "left-of-center". There was a quiet chorus of shrugs when he asked the class if anybody understood that the bottles symbolized magic. He also didn’t understand the labels and said that they didn’t look like they were on the bottles. I thought I’d at least get credit for "closing in on the action", which he tries to get everyone to do. Oh well.

First Edition

Here’s what the actual first edition cover looks like. (I borrowed an image from someone who has copies for sale and hope he doesn’t mind in exchange for a link back!) This was made according to the same memo specifications we used for our assignment:

Which cover would you choose?