This is greybean.com version 5.0 (codename: keaton).
The live redesign is currently 8% complete.
Okay, so, the guy’s my hero, at least in my chosen field (as he is for a lot of people who do what I do). He’s the most famous graphic designer in the world. USA Today called him “the closest thing to a rock star” in the industry. He’s written a novel that was selected as a New York Times Notable Book of 2001, the rights to which he recently sold to a Hollywood studio to be made into a movie, and he’s currently working on a new novel. He designed the covers for all of the recent Sin City graphic novel reprint editions. He’s edited and contributed to innumerable books about the DC Comics universe, and he’s written an actual Superman-Batman strip, which was painted by Alex Ross. He’s got a monograph of his work coming out in a month, and he’s speaking at AIGA tonight in Chicago.
And by some incredible happenstance, I’m working with/for him on his first official website. And it’s just gone live today. It’s a limited, preview-type site at this point, but it’s there. And it’s my work. Go check it out.
This is, of course, the first iteration of this year’s template, and this is definitely a proprietary image, but I wanted to show it off anyway, ’cause I like it:
Okay, kids, here it finally is. This site has been aching for the assistance of a content management system for, literally, years longer than there has been such a thing. So, now it has one.
Welcome, officially, to greybean.com v4.5 lite. I’m leaving the ‘lite’ moniker attached despite the fact that this site is already much more richly concentrated with information than it’s ever been. It just doesn’t have the same sort of useless bells and whistles that it has in the past.
The site is powered by WordPress, an open source, and very powerful, CMS. Its look, feel and functionality are based on Michael Heilemann’s incredibly popular Kubrick theme. Expect the look of the site to change semi-frequently over the next few weeks or months as I learn more about WordPress, Kubrick, PHP and CSS. I’ll put up a more detailed colophon in the very near future.
So, what does all of this really mean?
As you may have seen, the cover art for Criterion’s The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou DVDs hit the internet this week, and I found myself terribly disappointed with it. And that got me thinking about just how good Criterion’s covers always are.
The Criterion Collection covers are consistently hands down the best in the industry. There’s no other studio who so willingly eschews commerciality (read: star headshots, standard poster art–usually with star headshots superimposed, taglines and the like) in the interest of compelling design. This might be related to how low the commercial value of some of Criterion’s product is, but it usually follows through to their more widely known titles as well. Here, let me do a little comparison for you of Criterion cover designs and their corresponding Hollywood studio designs (and I’ll just use bigger, more commercial titles to better illustrate my point). The major studio’s art is on the left, Criterion’s on the right:
This might be two Monday nights in a row without rain. I haven’t gone out there yet, though, so I could be wrong. It did rain this morning, however.
A couple things: 1. Ocean’s Twelve has a website and a teaser trailer (if you can call it that). The teaser has a pretty awesome look to it, but don’t think you’re gonna learn anything about the movie. Or even see a single frame of film. Nevertheless, I cannot wait.
2. thedigitalbits.com is reporting a September 28 street date for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Also, it’s listed at a $29.98 SRP. Considering that it’s a Universal title you can expect that to mean that it’ll be a two-disc deal.
Continue reading ‘“This might be two Monday nights in a row…”’
Three quick bits of info:
1. A day after I picked him up for the ‘Bugs, Anaheim relief pitcher Francisco RodrÃguez gave up more runs (3) than he had the entire season to date (2) while blowing both the hold and the save and earning the loss against the Indians tonight. Incredible.
2. Have you guys seen the new cover art for Kill Bill Volume 2? Well, here’s the old art:
