Workflow: Space's Next Chapter

Part 2 explaining my LinkedIn series describing workflow within the CNN Art Department for any aspiring editorial illustrators or designers in my network.

As previously mentioned, a pitch will come in and after evaluation it will be placed into Asana, or in this case, Trello to be assigned and tracked. This pitch sounded sorta like this: “For a 3-month sponsorship starting April. The title “Space’s Next Chapter” has been approved by Legal. More info attached, but deliverables includes: Top of page branding for landing page and articles. I don't imagine the NASA font is usable?”

The type set is 99% of the time predetermined but we do branding occasionally at CNN, and since this was space related, I was chomping at the bit to get started. It was initially a sponsorship that was only to last a few months, but it’s still going strong today and nearly all the space stories and interactives I have produced, designed for, art directed, animated, and illustrated appear with this branding. Incredibly satisfying to have designed both the packaging and the content of an ongoing Space section within CNN.

My process for typography is the same as my process for concept art and everything else design related. It starts with a Dropbox Paper doc where I place ANY visuals from my library and links that catch my eye. For typography I really like the site “Art of the Title” which has just about every title treatment you can imagine and often includes notes and interviews from the designers describing the processes that guided them.

Once I’m fired up on typography I begin re-inventing aspects of the reference that resonate with me and iterating from there. Simply jotting down the title on a napkin or typing it out is all that’s needed to get started. Moving fast is key here, just get it all out- try anything and everything. After a few hours I send 3 of my strongest designs and request feedback. That feedback usually is something along the lines of; “we like parts of these 2”. The iterating process continues on from there, get 2-3 additional options and bounce them off the stake holders until you’re happy or more commonly at CNN, until you’re out of time.

Along with the logo/title treatment, there is usually a background that the logo is placed over. Ever since I saw the original art at Syd Mead's show at Yerba Buena Center in 1996, (anyone in the network remember this?) I have absolutely loved the starfield background of the Sulaco painting. It’s so fresh and done in such a carefree manner, and instantly was my number one pick to inspire the background for Space’s Next Chapter.
I will include a short video showing these references, some of my iterating, and the process behind painting the background and what it looks like on the CNN Site! (Go ahead and check it out, and while you're at it, catch up on all the great reporting being done by the CNN Space team!