fbpx

Behind the scenes of Idealog’s dirtiest cover ever

The kooky minds over at our sister publication Idealog Magazine have a long, illustrious history when it comes to putting a little extra oomph into its cover design. Whether that be hand drawing a complete chalk image or doing an extreme close up of Minister of Everything Steven Joyce's intimidating face. But their latest issue (on sale from Monday) really takes the cake – or should I say, mud pie.

To illustrate the issue's feature story about winemakers Kim and Erica Crawford, who have literally grown their business from the ground, the Idealog designers thought it would be fitting to grow their own cover (kind of). Art director Aimee Carruthers created the cover lines with Baby's Tears (a type of nettle), dirt and four hours of back-breaking labour.

"By the end of it my knees were shot. I now know what gardeners' knees feel like. I then huddled in the corner, nursing my aching joints while [photographer]Tony Brownjohn masterfully lit the scene to look like early morning sun," she says.

The idea for the arboreal cover came out of necessity. The Idealog team had very little time with the Crawfords, making a standard cover photo difficult to produce. 

"I instantly was amused by the idea that they were growing their new brand and growing their vines from scratch, so the cover lines came to me quickly. There isn't a lot of time between magazine deadlines, so I went for what I thought would be the simplest (and most fun) execution," says Carruthers.

Here's a quick look behind the scenes:

 

About Author

Avatar photo

One of the talented StopPress Team of Content Producers made this post happen.

Comments are closed.