Our hot-off-the-press book Prismatic Ecology: Ecotheory beyond Green uses color as a guide to theoretical reflection on innovations that arrive when ecotheory moves beyond the pastoralism of green. This book has a gorgeous cover and a pretty cool story behind that cover. We’ve asked the cover designer, Jeff Clark, to let us in on his process.
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| The river Hvitá in Iceland. Its falls, which appear to plummet into the earth, are called “Gullfoss” or “Gold falls.” Photo by Jeffrey J. Cohen. |
BY JEFF CLARK
The editors of Prismatic Ecology had provided, among other art ideas, a photograph of a rainbow over a canyon. This gave me the idea to try and play with light and color in my darkroom. I printed the title and subtitle on a transparency sheet, laid it in an empty white utility sink, then lit it and photographed it:
Then I wet the sink, squirted in some paint, and laid the transparency back in:
… which felt a little garish or obvious. So I rinsed out the sink, squirted in just a little bit of paint, and filled it way up and floated the transparency on the surface of the water:
This wound up being too soft, I imagine, for everyone’s taste. In the end, the editors chose a design that featured this photo, which was created by submerging the transparency a bit in a quick and carelessly paint-infused bath of water:
I had a blast. If I could go back, though, I’d spend some time kerning the Joanna.
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Jeff Clark‘s graphic design studio, Quemadura, is based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. He is the editor of Wolf.