Looking through Henry's blog he sometimes gives a description about each of his projects and explains his design process...
"This was a difficult subject to package. I wanted to focus on one aspect of the book and I chose the "Heroic Cowboy" myth. Where women needed men's protection and men were able to provide it. This was the turning point where America's persona was formed. I thought using a classic John Wayne pose as a silhouette would be an arresting image. But it was determined that it wasn't saying enough of what the book was about. It had to look epic and expansive. The only way to portray the story that my Publisher wanted was to depict the entire history with multiple images. From Pre-Revolutionary America where homesteads were attacked, the women kidnapped with nothing that the men could do to protect them. To the growing myth of the cowboy savior, hopeful stories of the cowboy defeating the Indians and protecting the women, to the resurgence of that ideal in Post-9/11 America and heroic rescue of Private Lynch. But this was beginning to sound like a recipe for image/story overload."
"My first device to contain all of these ideas was to create a shadow box or diorama of these scenes. Looking through them as if we were peering through history. I had recently seen the Kara Walker exhibition at the Whitney Museum and I was blown away by her animated shadow puppet films. So graphic and full of energy. I had started seeing Illustrator Andrea Dezsö work around in magazines and went to her web site. The range of her visual expression was amazing. She had the technique, style and flow that I thought would be perfect in telling this complex story in a simpler form.
I called her up and it turned out that she was already familiar with the book because she had illustrated the author's New York Times Op-Ed piece. So from the start, I felt confident about the two of us tackling this project together.
After several brainstorming discussions, we soon scrapped the idea of a dimensional picture box because it was unnecessarily complicated and decided to try this on one level."
The sketches were then photographed to suggest the original diorama box idea and to feel like a nightmare seen through a television:
Alternative designs from his design development
I have also included his design for 'Wandering souls' in my research because I think it captures the same tone as I'm hoping to achieve for my design of 'one hundred years of solitude'.
Really nice layout of text and choice of font to combined with background image.
Alternative designs from his design development
More designs I like, designed/directed by Henry Yee
