Imagine going to a restaurant that is operated by a great chef. He's young and has very little track record, but he's supposed to make amazing food. You walk in, its got a crappy looking sign and a dirty storefront. The dining area looks like a goodwill store exploded...and not in that ironic cool kinda way, but more in that "this place is going to make me really sick" kinda way. The food, while gourmet in quality is served on styrofoam dishes and isn't plated very nicely....And the prices are incredibly expensive because the chef is supposed to be talented.

Would you eat there?

In a lot of ways a graphic novel or any book in general is the same way. People judge books by their covers. Its why publishers spend a lot of time and money trying to figure out the best design solution to get you to pick up their book and give it a chance. The best design is invisible and allows the content to sing. The worst design calls attention to itself as something to be made fun of. Its what you notice first and what helps inform your snap judgement on whether or not this thing in your hand is for real, or just amateur. What good is all your hard work if no one is interested in picking your book up?

As great as your comic story is, and as great as your illustrations are, if the presentation is cheesy, poorly produced, or just badly done, no one is going to invest the time and money into giving your story a chance. Think about that. You busted your behind for a year or more on this graphic novel, and then you half-arse the final presentation. Its not that uncommon. What's the point of all that hard work? This isn't just the physical graphic novel..its your website, your business cards, your leave behinds and other promo materials. Its everything. Its the first and maybe only impression you'll get to make with a customer, a publisher, an editor etc.

I've met so many amazing illustrators and photographers who decided to be Superman and design their own promos and merch. Their skill sets in their own medium doesn't necessarily translate into design and production and they are left producing high level art with amateur level presentation. Pixelated images, bad "default" type like THE FONT THAT SHOULD NOT BE NAMED or Arial that is poorly set full or rivers, orphans and widows (real type terms) that just brings attention to the fact that this is not professional work. As a result that work is ignored and labeled as being disposable.

Its important to factor in a significant portion of your time and project budget into working with a good designer. They can help you create an amazing logo and cover for your book, make sure you don't commit one of the hundreds of typographic crimes (yes thats a real term) that you see all too often in comics and give your project the most professional presentation you can. Not to mention they can help you navigate the intimidating print production process, creating good files that high end printers can use to deliver the great results you are paying for.

Can you do it all yourself? Well maybe, but think about how long it took you to learn your craft. Did you learn how to draw from reading a few tutorials online? Did you learn how to write compelling stories overnight? Design is a very complex craft that requires a disciplined eye with an appreciation for detail and a technical understanding that comes with experience. And no, just because you figured out how the type tool in photoshop works doesn't mean you're a graphic designer.

It all comes down to standards and what kind of first impression you want to make.

I agree.
Very often designing your own stuff is equal to letting your little daughter illustrate your book for you. It's just not a good idea, even if it'll make your daughter happy and cost you absolutely nothing.

It always seemed to me that typography - more than any other graphic design aspect - is the sort of thing you either get or you never will get no matter how many lessons you'll take on the subject. What's your thoughts on this? Can anyone really learn graphic design without some basic talent?

As a trained graphic designer myself I can only agree – design seems to be taken for granted across the board, especially by artistically talented people, who don't seem to realize design is extremely technical and having good taste is simply not enough. In part, I majored in design specifically so I can do this myself, and I'm really glad, because I'd never have figured all this out on my own.

But I gotta say, having an outstanding cover for a mediocre book is even more offputting. I've picked up a few comics with glossy cover graphics and simply awful contents (by another illustrator) and these guys have lost a reader for good.

@cedarseed-TOTALLY disapointing! I feel the same about movies...a great poster with a lame movie makes me feel ripped off. Its really cool that there is another designer on here. Is your GN going to use some of your design aesthetic or are you approaching it differently?

@iaviv--well talent is talent. I truely believe that talent is transferable to different mediums with training and dedication. The best graphic designers are often very good at drawing, painting or photography, they just choose to use design as their medium usually out of a desire to be more commercially flexible and employable.

Typography is something that has A LOT of rules and strategies to it. Creative people hate the idea of wrongs and rights but there is with type. A lot of it is based on centuries of trial and error and attention to detail that is sort of past down do each generation of designer. When you see masterful typography you don't notice it, in that it allows the words on the page to convey info. Its easy to read, looks nice balanced etc. You have to put in the hours with it, and really study the nuance to get it. Understand why things work and don't. Read a lot about it, ask questions, and most importantly you have to do the work and fail a lot to learn. I worked with a rather famous German Art Book publisher who taught me more about design and type in a few months than i ever learned at school, but that was by producing so much work on a daily basis you can't help but learn.

What i usually see is that amateur designer who happens to be an amazing illustrator with great instincts who can put together something with a great idea that lacks the finesse of a trained eye. That comes down to knowing rules, understanding grids and hierarchies etc. I mean there is a reason why designers take 4 and 5 courses on typography at better design schools.

I do think anyone with solid visual art talent can be a good designer. I recently found my first community college design work and it was PATHETIC. I mean hopelessly bad. WIth a couple of years of training at a good design school i became employable and some might even say that i'm pretty good at it.

Because typography has so many rules there are books you can get that will help you understand it. I'll post something on that a bit later when i can gather some names together.

I for one, hate picking up a great looking book only to find a bunch of junk inside. One of my early decisions with reMIND was to make sure that the cover art is the same quality as the interior art. This meant that I needed to make really good interior art if I wanted my cover to really attract people.

The sad thing to me is because so many cover are better than the interior art, now I tend to ignore covers most of the time and in turn hardly ever give a book a chance unless it really REALLY stands out. I mean it has to be exactly what I'm looking for for me to pick it up now days.

I think your point about having a designer help or handle all the print stuff is important for artists to understand too. I've failed in this before trying to figure out how to make a PDF to the specifications of a specific printer only to be unhappy with the result even though I thought I followed all the guidelines perfectly.

That's an interesting question! The book tells a story pretty straight and doesn't really lend itself to visual statements that might yank the reader out of the storyline and remind them this is a graphic novel. Or at least, I'm not sure I could pull it off successfully just yet! That said, the designer does leak out (for instance I insert photography in some places), and as the volumes progress I'm allowing myself to depict certain moments in "different" ways
I'm brewing an idea for a future GN, however, that'll be much more graphic design-oriented!

Yeah, when the exterior and the interior are vastly different, it's usually a major turn off for me.
This is kinda why I'm glad I'm doing a lot of design based class as well, so I don't end up being completely negligent in that area. It is quite important to be able to do that kinda stuff, and most of it can reinforce aesthetic quality.
One idea of an interesting use of typography I can think of is when Frank Miller had a page (I believe it was in Sin City) where the panels of the page was the onomatopoeia of three gunshots with the panel's content within those words. It was a nice touch towards the effect of what we would read as a deafening sound.

Chris, I wrote a bit hastily this morning before going to work, and forgot to ask – what about you? Do you find your designer training influences your approach to making graphic novels?

I think anyone can 'learn' it the same way you can learn any other branch of expression. Talent only takes you so far, and studying only takes you so far. You need to support one with the other.

The big problem with graphic design is it's not recognized as an art form - even by many of the schools that 'teach' courses in it. It's a newer means of expressing an idea. While everyone can see the cave paintings at Lascaux and say 'Well that's not how things sit in 3d space' because we've had some thousands of years to reflect on it, not everyone recognizes that Papyrus is the devil's font and no one should use it. Ever.

The layman can't tell you what good design is, and usually doesn't even realize he's reacting to it. No one really sees it as art so everyone thinks they can do it.

Being an artist seeking to work professionally gives you an immediate leg up because you understand the basics.

-You need to take criticism well, from everyone.
-You need to understand that how you present the work will affect it's mood. Color, shapes, composition, etc. With added fun of serif, sans serif, rivers, kerning, wheee.
-You have to understand that the tools don't do the work for you (if your classes only teach you how to use Adobe programs and nothing else, you are wasting your money)
-You have to research what the hell you're doing. One of my favorite facepalm moments was someone fancying themselves a designer giving a business named 'Torus' a logo with a bull... Where 'Taurus' means bull and 'Torus' means a doughnut shape. And they used it, too.
-You have to recognize that unless you're Paula Scher (http://worldsbestlogos.blogspot.com/200 ... -logo.html), you are not going to produce your final work in a sitting. It's going to take a lot of tweaking, printing, reprinting, and my favorite, squinting at upside down.
-Being able to draw in general put me so ahead of my peers I couldn't believe it. My program's assignments were often for real, nonprofit clients, and always brought in a professional from the area to critique our pieces at several stages in the process - No one believed I had created all my own artwork. o.o

Design can be learned. It takes time though. I took illustration in school, but design classes were part if the program. The same rules of composition apply to design, illustration and photography.

Typography is an interesting one. Now working as a graphic designer, the typography rules that I learned in school were pretty solid. I've also spent years reading everything I can get my hands on relating to typography (plus I've worked with some amazing designers and creative directors and learned a lot from them). Learn the basics first before you try anything crazy!

@Jason - that's one if the things that's driven me away from GN's over the years. The quality of the work on the inside doesn't match the stunning work on the cover. For me, the whole piece has to have the same level of art and attention to detail. I know the effort it takes to do that on a project, so work that doesn't have that is a let down.

I don't think anyone here really understood my point.
I've seen plenty of graphic design students that graduated and still had no idea what they were doing. They've learned nothing! I have never even studied graphic design and I can easily tell bad typography from a mile away. So yeah, it may seem as if you can learn anything - but it takes just one person that goes to schools and private lessons and gets absolutely nothing from it to disprove that theory. That's my point. That is seems that you have to have some kind of basic talent, some basic understanding of the subject matter - before you even start getting into it seriously. It doesn't mean you're aware of your talent/understanding, it just means you have them to begin with. That's what talent is from what I understand.

@ iaviv - I'd totally agree with that (well almost... not everyone graduating has no clue). But like any kind of art, if you have talent, you can learn it, which was the point I was trying to make.

What I would say is that what annoys me, now that I am a graphic designer, is everyone thinking they can do design and having no clue. It's taken years of learning and practising to actually be able to do it well.

I would also say that in general, I think most comics aren't that well designed. They really haven't evolved that much over the years.

"the failure of the student is the failure of the teacher" and "those who can't do, teach"

I'd say what you're noticing is the flood of crap designers due to for profit design academies like the ones you see on daytime TV or state schools and colleges offering some courses in lieu of a full fledged design program with real faculty and focus. There seems to be the idea that teaching someone software (which is what a vast majority of B tier design schools do) tricks or flashy trendy of the moment stuff is all that a student needs. When in fact, theory, history, practice etc are all really important. There are maybe 10 high end Design programs in the US (i went to one of them). Sure good designers come from other places, but the level of work you see out of an A list school versus state college with a few courses or an art academy is like night and day. I had to help hire interns at my last job. I did all the prelim work and I went through 100 different resumes to find 10 people to consider interviewing...8 of those couldn't pass a basic design production software test. There are a lot of unemployable fresh designers in the world.

Type is something that takes years to learn and a lifetime to master. The great thing is you can vet a designer by their work and a basic conversation with them.

I think comic book design has really digressed in the past decade. Its become so reliant on using on Adobe effects instead of solid design. Its bad kitsch. I'd give anything to have that 80s comic design aesthetic back. At least it was good.

@cedarseed--yeah i'm really trying to do something different with my book. Make it more of an illustrated design sequential piece instead of a straight up comic. Its tricky especially with the typography and getting ti feel comic like while not doing some of the things that i find kinda crappy in a lot of comics.

I started off doing a small story teaser like a single issue just to get the hang of it before i attack the full book. I learned alot about the art direction that way.

I plan on posting something in a few weeks once i get the web stuff set up for it.

Hey here's an idea - we can start a new thread in which everyone can post some of their favorite comic books designs (of any era, not just recent stuff). Logos, typography, covers... anything that strike you as an exceptional example.
Should I start the thread? Does it sound like a good idea?

DO IT! I'd be so down for it...now lets hope i have time. ha

There is a lot of good stuff out there....i don't mean to sound like a party pooper. But like anything, there is more crap than good y'know?

I would love to see that! I can't really think of anything I read that would fit that description.

I was acutally thinking of doing the same thing... Put together a 12 page story or something like that and see if that can't steer me down the right path. Plus you'll get an idea of what's working and what's not before you commit to the larger book!

i got the idea from Mike Mignola...Hellboy was born as a little 6 (or 8) page teaser story in collected format for SDCC back in the day.

This one is working out more like a single issue and i thought it could be cool to figure things out. Once i get it lettered and the last few spreads done i'll put it up.