When the art director for this project sent me the photos of the model I knew exactly what her handwriting should look like. I love this kind of expressive work, where true handwriting shines. In this kind of work I am an actress, channeling the spirit and character of the subject.
Letterforms and illustration © Iskra Design
Asian-inspired brush work can be used to create distinctive brandmarks in packaging, in editorial illustration, graphic identities and publishing. These are a few examples of different techniques, some done with brush and some with a pen, that all come from training in sumi-e.
Mark Oliver Design recently contacted me to work on the rebranding of Muir Glen. Sometimes words have an aesthetically fortunate combination of letters, and it was a delight to try many different approaches. Although our solutions weren't chosen for the final package I am showing them here as they represent a good range of styles that are appropriate for contemporary package branding.
Here is the brandmark in context in Mark Oliver's package applications. Simplicity and functionality: recipes combined with exquisite watercolor illustrations (I do not know the name of the illustrator.)
I don't know why, but when I see the bunnygrass appear in the aisles each year, along with the chocolate rabbits holding thier baskets and quivering their whiskers it just makes me unreasonably happy. Easter is one day of the year when I feel completely freed from the boundaries of good taste. I mean, you could dye those eggs with onion leaves and parsley, or you could go ahead and ornament them with a temporary tattoo in pink and green. And then set the eggs in a basket with crinkled fossil fuels from the grass factory and shiny foiled candies. And eat them by Monday. This is a holiday you can't do on an Ipad. It's real.
© Iskra Johnson 2011
I started my career in art as a fingerpainter. My side-of-the-hand technique was admired by all (all 22 of the other children in my kindergarten class.) I thought for this holiday I would return to my roots. Fingerpaint collage on non-archival cheap paper from Joann's Craft Emporium.
Recently I had the challenging experience of working on cover designs for David Brooks' new book The Social Animal. The book does not fit into any neat genre categories, and this is the hardest kind of book to create an image identity for. Although the book features a man and woman who meet, fall in love and go through life together it is not a romance. Nor is it a straight sociology book, although it concerns the intersection of mind-science and social reality; nor is it a self-help book, although it focuses on success in life and how people achieve it. David Brooks' reputation is not particularly "sexy" but this was not a dry book, and the cover needed to have emotional warmth and popular appeal that could reach a broader audience than the readers of the New York Times editorial page.
Hmmmmm……
Random House sent me the last idea they had developed, showing a man and woman in silhouette facing each other at a table, with the title in formal script typography. The direction was fairly open: do something different, better, that somehow captures this non-genre-genre. Figures, but maybe not figures exactly. Make it look smart, but not intellectual. And come up with something in 24 hours. I love this kind of assignment. It's a little bit like gambling, as your chances of winning the round are very low. The house is stacked with a whole lot of ambiguity and the hidden sword of author approval. There is nothing to lose and so I try to have fun and push for really creative solutions.
I explored several more versions than you see here, but these were the basic directions and styles. I tried a contemporary pop-culture face motif that would speak to the emotions, with warm-lovey-colors, and also a more sophisticated look using my variation on the universal symbols for man and woman to suggest courtship without the schmaltz. The signage motif seemed appropriate for a book that talked about paths to success through life and methods of emotional navigation. There is also a certain chilliness in the universal symbols that expressed the archetypal form of Brooks' characters, who are not meant to be taken seriously as characters in a novel. In the mix was an organic brush-drawn figure icon which, when multiplied, suggested the bigger mass of society. Although none of my solutions were chosen a variation on the idea of multiple figures became the final cover by Beck Stvan and Ruby Levesque. The solutions below use my own hand lettering, painted backgrounds, illustration and photography. Existing fonts are used in some solutions.
All cover designs © Iskra Design
Designer, calligrapher, lettering artist. Read more 
