Chwast Booklet
Project Details
Fall 2024
Booklet Design
Deliverable:
20-Page Artist Feature Booklet
The goal of this project was to create a booklet that provides a brief introduction to a designer who is a personal inspiration. A towering figure in the world of graphic design and illustration, Seymour Chwast was an easy choice for me. His love of typography, use of pattern and color, wit, personal ethos, and humor all resonate with me and inform my design sensibilities.
Research & Discovery
My mood board for this project encompasses a variety of Chwast's design endeavors: logo design, packaging design, poster art, editorial illustation, political art, linocut, advertisement, picture books, and typography. The organization of the booklet arose naturally from my research and image collection in the early stages.
From the beginning, this project had a well-defined color palette and heavy use of pattern.
Sketches
Refinement Sketches
Final Design
Cover Design
The cover design combines a self-portrait Seymour Chwast created in the '80s for Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin with clown hats from the endpapers of his picture book The Twelve Circus Rings (1993).
Clowns are one of many repeating themes in Chwast's oeuvre, and perfectly embody the playful spirit of his work.
Contents Page
The layout for the Contents page was inspired by a piece called "Entertaining Boxes" Chwast made in 1959 for the 24th Push Pin Monthly Graphic. Typefaces used include Dogsmoke, a digitized version of Chwast's Artone, as well as several historical typefaces from Hamilton Wood Type to add to the antique bric-a-brac feel of the piece. Images are Chwast's and come from various Pushpin publications, as well as Chwast's picture books.
Contents page
"Entertaining Boxes" (1959), from the Seymour Chwast Archive
Final Spreads
Reflection
The biggest challenge I encountered during the design process was trying to fit a 70-year career into a 20-page booklet. Chwast has an immense body of work, and it was necessary to make very economical use of space (and a grid). I enjoyed culling through and selecting so many wonderful images, though there were more than a few outstanding pieces that tragically did not make it into the book. The Pushpin timeline spread especially presented a balancing act to create enough white space for the content to breathe.
Creating this piece was a great opportunity to create something brightly colored and wild and fun. It was also an opportunity to combine my experience in copy editing and publishing with graphic design in a seamless way that I think resulted in an elevated end product. I hope that it inspires the viewer to delve more deeply into the Chwast Archives and to learn more about his storied career.
All images belong to Seymour Chwast and Pushpin Inc.
Credit for the copy used in this project goes to the following online publications:
Seymour Chwast
Poster House
Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art
The Container List Blog
Ro Gallery