Celebrating black history

"Can we make a collage to use for the Perspectives page CP this weekend?" a hopeful pair of opinion editors each asked me separately on Tuesday. "No problem. Get me a list..." I responded both times.

I always think those things are going to be easy. Slap some photos onto other photos. Voila! Instant centerpiece.

Of course, now that the whole thing is behind me, I can think of at least three ways I could have done it "simpler." A bunch of stacked black-and-photos with IDs in red boxes on top of them, a la Vanity Fair and the like. A checkerboard of photo/ID pairs. A combination of the two ... sorta.

But you know, when you're on your 13th consecutive hour at the office — and even the morning after a semi-decent night's sleep after said long work day — it can be difficult to see your way out of the tunnel you created for yourself at the beginning of the project.

So I ended up with this collage. I, personally, like the glowing red super-hero-esque Muhammed Ali. I'm sure others will wonder what I was thinking. I tried turning him other colors, especially after I put a stylized photo of Rosa Parks, in her red shirt, very nearby. But he just didn't look quite so magnificent unless he was red.

And why is Frederick Douglass blue, you might wonder? Well, you'd be a little sad, too, if you were dead before it was cool to be black. ... Did I go too far? Forgive me. I tend to get punchy after a few very long days jammed between some less-than-appealing hour-long-plus commutes in the rain.

In hindsight, since I had to rap up quick and things weren't ending exactly right, I really should have had the desk tone the thing b/w. It probably would have been better, and I wouldn't have to explain why I made Ali the ani-Hulk. Grrrr.


Original phots from Getty Images, wire services, and web

Bottom row, from left: Rosa Parks, Muhammed Ali and Richard Pryor. Middle row: Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Back row: George Washington Carver, President Barrack Obama, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass (in blue) and Ruby Bridges (in white).

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Follow-up note: No one gave me even an ounce of flack for the red Ali. As a matter of fact, I got quite a few compliments on the illustration. I guess you just never can tell what's going to strike people as odd — or not.

It's kinda like lip-synching...

So we had a photo of three girls singing in a competition, and a story about a competition these girls were NOT competing in. What to do....? OH YEAH. Turn the photo into a photo illustration for one of our features covers.

This background, a nod to the iPod ads, came together very quickly and was pretty fun working up all those layers. The white lines should have been a little darker; they got a bit lost on the newsprint. Other than that, this was a quick fix that looked like we planned it this way all along.

The smaller, alternate version was cropped for use as a background for a skybox promo on the front page.

If you play your cards right...

This illustration was for a centerpiece we did about the 2008 California primary election. Getting all the heads' proportions to be similar was a little tricky. Also, unfortunately, the edges of the cards kinda faded out in the toning process so the definition got lost a little.

Not sure what i would have had time to do to fix it though, given I made the whole thing on deadline. Maybe made sure the toning was satisfactory on the mugshots and then NOT toned the final illustration. That might have worked.

Anyway, the headline went on the blank card in front, with heavy Helvetica condensed typography in red and blue. (I'm still looking for the page... hope to post it here soon.)