A while back The Criterion Collection asked me to contribute some title treatment designs for their release of Charlie Chaplin'sThe Gold Rush. I had a lot of fun coming up with a bunch, inspired by woodtype posters of the great California gold rush of 1849. The creative direction changed a bit and none were used. It happens. This title treatment solution was a particular favorite.
Illustration
Covering Lonesome
Here are a couple of murky iPhone pics of the cover painting in-progress as well details from the completed cover image. Blogger has a way of down-resing jpeg files. So these won't convey the details of what's been uploaded, alas. It's all painted with gouache on illustration board, letters too. The radiant lines of the setting sun were done with a ruling pen and beam compass. Nervous making? You bet! Those things seem to have a mind of their own sometimes. Here's how it turned out. Lonesome comes out, for the first time ever on home video, August 28th. I can't reccomend it enough. I'll put up a few more images from the package as that date comes around.
Lonesome
Lonesome arrives on August 28th from the Criterion Collection --a jaw-dropping film if there ever was one. It's amazing to me that it's never been released for home video in any format until now. Of course there's a story behind that. Better, I think, to leave the telling to Criterion when the time comes. I will say this, whatever a movie could do in 1928 Lonesome does and does it gloriously. I mean camera moves, optical effects, miniatures, sound, even color --you name it. For the cover I worked in the tradition of the day and hand-painted the whole thing including the type. I drew my inspiration from the film of course as well as the work of the great Tom Purvis who knew something about weekends at the shore in the 1920s.
The Golden Age of Television
It's going around the internets that The Golden Age of Television was The Criterion Collection's biggest seller of 2009. It's great set --just about worth it alone for The Comedian. I loved working on it.