Making a Cover

A few days ago, I asked for some random photos for a mysterious project I was working on. You may not realize it, but you've already the end result!

A few weeks ago, I fell in love with this video of a graphic artist making a book cover. It showed discipline, planning, skillful execution... pretty much all the things I suck at. But I really wanted to do one. So to mask my scatterbrained nature, I decided to give myself a few challenges along the way: I'd build the cover out of completely random images, submitted by people who had no idea what they were participating in. And I'd do it in one hour.

Sunday afternoon, I took the full cache of images I'd been sent, dropped them into a randomizer and grabbed the first six that came out. I didn't think about what I was going to do before I started. I just turned on my screen recorder and did this:

Full disclosure: I cut a few minutes in two places because I got distracted by phone calls and/or the cats needed to come in and refused to comply. So the actual "making the cover" time was more like 46 minutes. Oh, and I truly had no idea what I was aiming for at the start. In fact, the design of the cover has helped me figure out some plot points for The New Real: Blast Radius next week!

I hope you enjoy this brief look into my brain. If you think it's fun, you should definitely check out the livewriting next Friday. That's where the real fun happens!