Wayward Arts Magazine (waywardarts.ca) recently asked TAXI to design the first issue of their second volume. We worked together with them to come up with the theme for all 12 issues. That theme was obsession. Our concept for our issue was to illustrate Edgar Allan Poe's short story "THE BLACK CAT". This dark story tells the tale of a man who, with the aid of alcohol, becomes utterly obsessed with his cat.
One of the most interesting aspects of the process is that we invited ALL the designers at TAXI to participate in the magazine’s design. We printed the story out and cut it up into 12 sections and placed them into a hat. Very democratic and very exciting. We were however very worried that with so many designers involved the design might be a disaster. So, we decided to put in a few parameters to “heard the cats” so to speak. Black was mandated as the primary color of the magazine. If the designer wanted to use a color it had to be used as an accent. The last “rule” was that each spread had to contain at least one image of a cat.
At the back of the magazine we created a roll fold so the viewer could easily read the full story whilst enjoying each spread. With some help from our friends from Grayson Mathews Music + Sound, we also created a website that houses a haunting audio recoding of the story. This rendition can be heard at www.theblackcataudio.com
At the back of the magazine we created a roll fold so the viewer could easily read the full story whilst enjoying each spread. With some help from our friends from Grayson Mathews Music + Sound, we also created a website that houses a haunting audio recoding of the story. This rendition can be heard at www.theblackcataudio.com
