Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
[music]
Augusten Burroughs is the "Running with Scissors" guy.
I did not design the cover of that, but we had since become friends and I do his covers now...
and the book after that was called this.
And this was about his stint in rehab.
When he was in his 20's, and he was a very well-to-do ad exec. on Madison Ave. in New York.
And he was a raging alcoholic...I know that's rather redundant.
But it got the point where his co-workers did an intervention.
And they basically said, you are going to go to rehab and you are going to get clean, or you will be fired...
and you will die.
So, that was pretty hard for him to argue with.
Now, for me, this became the opposite of typography 101.
And in schools I don't really have to explain what that means,
but remember, you know, type 101 you select a word or you're given a word and you make it look like what it says it is.
This is the opposite of that, he was in denial.
So now we want to make the typography look like it's in denial.
And this is the single most lo-tech way to do this.
I set up the typography in quark, printed it out on an Epson printer with water soluable ink...
tacked it up on the wall, took a bucket of water and just threw it at it.
And this is what we got.
And Augusten tells rather an amusing story of being waylayed in an airport.
And his flight was delayed so he went to the bookstore there just to see if they were selling his books.
They always are, and some woman picked this up and she shook her head and she took it to the counter...
and she said "This one's ruined!"
[audience laughter]
And the guy behind the counter, not missing a beat, said, "I know lady, they all came in that way."
[audience laughter]
So we know it was well printed.
Okay, this is his next book after that.
And he told me the title over the phone, and this is a collection of essays.
And I said, "I know exactly what the cover should be."
And he said, "What?!" and I said, "Well, I'm not going to tell you."
I'm not a teller, I'm a shower.
I'm terrible at pitching stuff.
I'd much rather just show it.
So I called up my friend Jeff Spear, the photographer, who I work with on a bunch of stuff.
And I told him my idea, and so we put an ad in the Villiage Voice for a very specific kind of hand model.
And we got several sort of crank responses, but then we found the right person.
I sent this off to the art director and a couple days went by and then he called back,
and he said, "Marketing loves it, and the reason they love it is because it's yellow and it has a hand on it.
[audience laughter]
I said, "Well good for them."
Alright, now most of that story is bunk.
Of course, this is not a freaky hand model, this is me.
Jeff is a photoshop wiz and he stuck an extra finger on there for us.
But the next thing is not a photoshop trick.
This is from a fan, from one of Augusten's fans.
Wrote him, and said "When I saw your book in the bookstore, I cried. Because I realized, finally, I was not alone."
[audience gasps]
There it is.
And I thought, where were you when we were putting this together?
[audience laughter]
But the thing I like about it the best, is the 30% off sticker.
[audience laughter]
Which of coures should say 30% more.
[audience laughter]