STATION ZERO

I was  psyched when Light Grey Art Lab announced the call for artists for their Station Zero show. They had been working on amassing a collection of old sci-fi books from the 50s through the 70s and were looking for artists to reinterpret the covers.

I definitely wouldn't call myself a sci-fi buff. More a sci-fi admirer. When I opened up the package containing my book from Light Grey, I was excited to find the beauty pictured on the top left. Such a great cover already!

When I thought about what I like in great cover design, more often than not it is pretty clear, graphic and slightly quirky design. I liked the fun line of shapes under Leiber's name on the original cover and thought that creating vignettes on my cover using similar shapes could be a fun homage to the original design.

This cover turned into one of those cases where I work on it and keep adding things only to undo everything because it starts looking too cluttered. The book is actually comprised of four short stories. I thought four of the shaped vignettes would be an interesting concept to work with, one alluding to each of the stories. In the end, I simplified it down to two. One with the radar to hint at the government/technological aspects involved in the stories and one to hint at the barren landscape that permeates the book.

You can see photos from the show's opening last Friday on the Light Grey Art Lab blog. The show will be up for another few weeks so if you live in the Twin Cities area you should check it out! If not, the rest of the artwork can be viewed in their online gallery and prints are available from the shop. Thanks to the awesome folks at Light Grey Art Lab for including me in another one of their amazing shows!