Going All the Way

A novel acclaimed by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (yes that is the famous one). I would recommend it if you lived in Indianapolis in the 1950's, or if you liked Catcher in the Rye. No I didn't read it.

Book Covers

Hello all. I have recently encountered an excellent tool for working out some book cover designs. This small site gives you the option to explore some interesting layouts for your covers and gives you the option to do front, back, and so on. Hope this helps everyone get their creative juices going. Added is my design for the book, Going All the Way.

Knockout Text

If you've wanted to "cut out" your text box from a band or box of color to reveal an image or another color underneath, this should help. This method allows you to edit the text, resize, kern or whatever unlike using create outlines and the pathfinder. "And Here. We. Go."

1. Create your text, format it the way you want, place it where you want, and change the color in your swatches to "paper".

2. Create the box  you want to make your band or strip with, place it behind the text and make it whatever color you like.

3. Group the text with the box, this allows you to select the "knockout group" check-box in your effects palate.

4. Now for the tricky part. Go into your layers palate and select the TEXT BOX ONLY (all caps = serious). Then in the effects palate change the transparency effect from normal to multiply. If you change the box to multiply, it will have transparency, so be sure to only select the text.

Now when you place an image or gradient behind the text group, the text will be "clear" or "invisible" and the box you created will create a knockout block of text. This is awesome because you can use your layers palate or direct select tool to pick you text and modify it, so you don't have to commit to it like you would when you convert the text to outlines. The design in this post more or less demonstrates what you can do with this.

Standing: It's important.

Read all about it.

Ted Nash: Simple to Understand It.

A few mock covers for the best band in the universe. Better than John Mayer, or any other first name, last name band.

Time for some God Damn Silliness.

Stumbled upon this today. Enjoy.

Open Can of Worms

So... Miss Spy beat me too it. This is Chip Kidd. Chip Kidd has made covers for dozens and dozens of book. Most likely something you've read and something you've enjoyed had a Chip Kidd cover. You can browse through them on his site: Good Is Dead