Cover gallery

Five studies, taken apart

The quickest way to understand a piece of commercial design is to build one and then explain every decision in it. These plates were drawn for that purpose. Each has a numbered teardown beside it, and none of them is pretending to be an artefact.

The Cellar Door. One diagonal, one hot colour, and a threat that never gets a face.

The Cellar DoorIn the manner of a 1930s pulp magazine cover

Red Line Express. The pulp painting flattened into ink and given twelve seconds of clock.

Red Line ExpressIn the manner of a 1950s adventure comic cover

She Cuts the Rope. The same picture with the strongest line handed to the person in the rope.

She Cuts the RopeIn the manner of a modern indie comic cover

Nobody Is Coming. The doorway is open and stays empty, so the only person who can solve this is already in the frame.

Nobody Is ComingIn the manner of a 1970s underground comic cover

About these covers

The covers on this site are original studies made for it, drawn in the idiom of a period. They are not historical covers, no real publication is being reproduced, and they are attributed to no artist. Where a caption says a study is in the manner of a decade, that describes the look the picture imitates and nothing else.

A cover is a picture of an agreement

Somebody decided what would be shown, and how far it would go. Drawings only record that. The deciding happens between people.

See where it happens now