Work done in ‘08 when I was with Qube:
The project was John O’Sullivan’s poem anthology, Odd Poems & Slogans. Q (the Boss) was patient with me. I was fresh out of SMU and didn’t have any formal design background. He had to explained the usual creative work processes (grids, master page layout, technicals, etc..) as we went along, and was tactful every time he thought my draft was ****. Haha. Thank God for the little things in life.
The concept was to house the anthology in a personal journal. There were almost 90 poems in total, and each poem was to have its own individual spread (or 2 poems in a spread as there were space constraints). The journal was to look weathered and believably masculine – I had some problems getting the feel right at first!
HE: A poem John wrote when he was 12
I had to read through and analyse the poems before I could start on the layouts. That sure took a while. Then, there was a lot of scanning, cutting, pasting, PS-ing involved… days when I couldn’t do a single spread right.. other days when the right combinations just fell into place…
CALKE ABBEY: I remember Q had to write to his mom in UK to "pick up some oak leaves in the paddock"
LA DINNER & BATAVIA
I horded string, paperclips, scraps of paper, magazine cutouts, tape and other randoms for months so I had enough material.. I probably had too much by the end, since I was keeping everything I came across and throwing away nothing, just like an old bag lady.
TREATY WITH SELF: The intial idea was to be able to pull out the "treaty" from the envelope, but you make do when cost prohibits 
TRAPPED SOUL: One of my earliest layouts. The initial photograph was replaced by one of John's when he sent over an envelope full of wonderfully aged black+white / sepia pictures.
By the end, it was crazy how much I got to know John O’Sullivan even though I only met him a few times..I had photographs of his family, letters from his friends, scribbles and notes he jotted down, paintings he did……
ADORATION & CANAL WALK: Had to search for ages to find a decent picture of the appropriate canal!
THE ENEMY WITHIN: A poem on alcoholism
BEING & CONVERSATION WITH MY TWIN
I finished up all the spreads, appendix and cover, but had to leave (was going to start school at Orita S!) before the final version was confirmed. It was one of those projects that you learn an incredible lot along the way.
There were spreads with coloured-photographs, spreads with polaroids, spreads with paintings, but those with the old photos were the ones I ended up loving the most.
PARLOUR: About waiting for your parents at boarding school. I loved this photography of John's old class. It reminded me so much of Evelyn Waugh's Decline and Fall. I'd laugh every single time I pulled it out.
PAUL: Poem about his father. Photograph of his father + him en route to an inn.
2 Comments
October 20, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Whoa, quite cool to see what it looks like. Do you know if the book has been published yet? (This is the one with some of my photos ya?)
October 22, 2009 at 12:57 pm
@ jac: It hit some financial snags along the way, so it hasn’t been published yet. I promise you you’ll see that copy (ies) of yours the moments it is!