[ Posted: Feb 04, 2010 ]
An interview with art director Josh Baker.
Client: Metaleap Design/ Paste Magazine
Title of Project: New Records in Old Cabins; Listening to my Life: Night Rounds
Describe your target audience/client base: Influential independent music aficionados within the 18-35 year old demographic.
What creative/business goals did you have with this project? We sought to visually represent the environment that writer Jenna Sandgate lives in from a creative and fun perspective. We wanted to engage readers and lead them visually into the article in the magazine.
What was the creative challenge? To create a portrait of Jenna, who blogs at Cold Antler Farm, about her adventures of homesteading and farming in Vermont, as well as her love of music. The image was to accompany an opinion piece Jenna wrote for Paste. We wanted to be sure to have the writer's likeness represented in the illustration. Meg did a fantastic job of placing her in a few different environments before we decided on the final direction.
How did Meg resolve the challenge? To quote from Meg herself, "I read through a large part of Jenna's blog to understand her experiences and passions. From there I tried to capture her lively personality and the things she loves and surrounds herself with. I attempted to visually convey her lifestyle of being 'alive with the sound of music'."
Describe the final outcome of the project: The finished piece shows Jenna surrounded by the animals, plants, and music she shares time with on her farm. It does a great job of transporting the reader into her world, enveloped in music and companionship in an otherwise isolated environment. Meg went with a quirky flowing style to play up the musical element of the story.
Jenna herself was so pleased with the finished product that she posted the image to her personal blog and commented on how much she really enjoy the portrait, "I got to write a full page essay for the new issue of Paste, which I was beyond thrilled about. Also, they hired the illustrator Meg Hunt to do this picture of me for the piece and she managed to really capture Cold Antler Farms!"
Tell us specifically about your experience working with our artist: My experience with Meg is certainly one of the best I've had with any illustrator. She creates such great, lush, colorful artwork that really captures the feeling of whatever piece she is illustrating. She is super easy to work with and a great person to boot!
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