Graphic Design

eBooks: The Steve Ramsay World-Wide Adventures by Rosaylmer Burger

Graphic Design

February 13, 2023|In Books, Graphic Design

Adventure novels have a long history of popularity. Evolving from mythical stories of Odysseus and Beowulf to explorers of strange lands, by the 1960s we had James Bond and cold warriors.

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Beetle Marsh OG

eBook: The Beetle by Richard Marsh

Graphic Design

April 25, 2019|In Books, Graphic Design

While I was working on the eBook for The Jewel of Seven Stars, I came across The Beetle, first published in 1897, just a few years before Jewel. More importantly, it was released the same year as Bram Stoker's Dracula, and rivalled it in popularity.

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Jewel Seven Stars OG

eBook: The Jewel of Seven Stars by Bram Stoker

Graphic Design

February 28, 2019|In Books, Graphic Design

The original tale of the Egyptian mummy come back to life was written by Bram Stoker – the author of Dracula – and first published in 1903. The Jewel of Seven Stars owes much to the dramatics of Victorian theatre. Stoker 's professional life was as an acting and business manager in the theatre, and the first half of this book is devoted to the manners and formalities of late 19th century English culture.

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Amerika Open Graph

Amerika: 1987 TV Mini Series

Graphic Design

August 24, 2018|In Graphic Design, Movies-TV

Amerika arrived in February 1987, a seven-part ABC TV mini series focused on the former USA 10 years after the USSR successfully invaded and defeated the Americans. Starring Robert Urich, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Neill, Christine Lahti, Wendy Hughes and Armin Mueller-Stahl, the story explores the troubled world of Americans in defeat and a nervous Soviet leadership afraid of an uprising.

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Star Trek Technical Manual Banner

The Star Trek Star Fleet Technical Manual 2.0

Graphic Design

In 1975, Franz Joseph’s Technical Manual was the perfect companion to his Enterprise blueprints. While there are more accurate sources now, these were two of the best items to have during the time after The Original Series went off the air and before the movies began.

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Giant-Size Marvel Template

Marvel Comics Giant-Size Cover Template

Graphic Design

June 27, 2017|In Comics, Graphic Design, Marvel

I've rebuilt and coloured a lot of vintage comic book covers. Now, it's your turn. Here's a template for Marvel's Giant-Size comics of the mid 1970s. I'd love to see what you create in the comments below.

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Doctor Strange (1978) DVD and Blu-ray Cover

Graphic Design

You have to feel for the folks over at Shout Factory. They got the rights to re-release the 1978 Doctor Strange TV movie to tie in with the release of the new feature film starring Benedict Cumberbatch. And they went to the effort to remaster it from the original film elements. That's dedication, and one of the reasons genre film and TV lovers love Shout like cinephiles love Criterion and Kino Lorber. They do things right.

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eBook: Gene Roddenberry's Spectre by Robert Weverka

Graphic Design

Post-Star Trek, Gene Roddenberry made a series of pilots in the 1970s: Genesis II (1973), Planet Earth (1974), The Questor Tapes (1974) and Spectre (1977).

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Trump's America Open Graph

Donald Trump's America Poster

Graphic Design

March 17, 2017|In Graphic Design, Stuff

One-hundred-and-five years ago, cartoonist Udo J Keppler saw the interests of capitalists and plutocrats at odds with his country's stated goals of liberty and justice for all. The Golden Calf reigned supreme.

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Battleship OG

Battleship – The Game

Graphic Design

March 7, 2017|In Graphic Design, Stuff

Battleship is quite an old game at this point, starting out as a pencil and paper game from the First World War era. The object is to sink your opponent's ships by calling out grid references, shelling the hidden navy. Hit or miss until total victory.

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The Last Portrait of Abraham Lincoln

Graphic Design

February 24, 2017|In Graphic Design, Stuff

Abraham Lincoln was the right man for the right time in US history. He preserved his country's Union through brutal civil war. By 1865, there was reason for hope to the end of conflict. In February of that year, he sat for what would be his last formal portrait.

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Statue Of Liberty Poster

"Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses…"

Graphic Design

February 23, 2017|In Graphic Design, Stuff

While built for other reasons, the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor, USA has come to symbolize the dreams and ambitions of generations of immigrants who came to the US to leave behind the strife in their native lands and fulfill the American Dream of peace, prosperity and freedom for their families.

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Fantastic Voyage Book Cover OG

Fantastic Voyage Posters and Wallpapers

Graphic Design

July 19, 2016|In Books, Graphic Design, Movies-TV, Sci Fi

Fantastic Voyage was released in 1966. Well-written, imaginative and with a good cast, it was one of the better science fiction films of the 60s.

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Filmation Tarzan DVD Cover OG

Filmation Tarzan Lord of the Jungle Season 1 DVD Cover

Graphic Design

In 1976, Filmation had the license to produce Tarzan cartoons for Saturday mornings. Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle debuted with 16 episodes that first season, and it was different than many previous portrayals of Edgar Rice Burroughs' signature character. Tarzan was shown as an intelligent and civilised character who had fantastic adventures with his animal friends in lost cities and strange civilisations, just as he was in the original novels. A lot of kids like me loved it.

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Adobe Bridge SVG Thumbnails OG

SVG Thumbnail Previews in Adobe Bridge

Graphic Design

June 25, 2016|In Graphic Design, Illustration, Stuff

While MacOS has the capability to preview SVG files with Quick Look in the Finder, current versions of Adobe Bridge show the generic file icon only. That is, unless SVGs are saved out with XMP compatibility. With SVG increasing in popularity, here's how to make image selection quicker and easier with thumbnails.

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Dr Syn 1 Cover OG

eBook: Dr. Syn · A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

Graphic Design

October 20, 2014|In Books, Graphic Design

Russell Thorndike created Doctor Syn for this, his first novel, published in 1915. A native of Romney Marsh in southeast England, he chose to base the book around real-life smuggling in the area in the late 18th century. Dr. Christopher Syn, an elderly parson, has his life turned upside down when His Majesty's government comes to Dymchurch-under-the-Wall to investigate that smuggling.

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Dr Syn Alias the Scarecrow Cover OG

Dr. Syn alias the Scarecrow Novel Cover

Graphic Design

October 4, 2014|In Books, Graphic Design, Movies-TV

In 1975, Disney decided to re-release Dr. Syn as a 75-minute feature film, and to tie into that, they commissioned Victoria Crume (aka Vic Crume) to write a novelisation of the film for young readers, something she had done before for other Disney properties and would do again.

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Dr. Syn – The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh

Graphic Design

October 4, 2014|In Books, Graphic Design, Illustration

Russell Thorndike's Doctor Syn first appeared in the novel of the same name in 1915, with six more novels following in the 1930s and 40s. The general public knows Syn from the 1964 Disney episodes starring Patrick McGoohan, but that's only one version of the story. The rest is worth looking at.

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Assignment Earth Website OG

AssignmentEarth.ca Relaunched

Graphic Design

The web's most complete site on this back-door pilot from Star Trek gets its seventh major update, with new design and content.

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Ornament eBook OG

Ornament eBook

Graphic Design

February 23, 2014|In Books, Graphic Design

This one came to me with the design language set by Liz Boyer of Chalk. I completed the book layout and then converted it to ePUB and KF8/MOBI ebooks in a short turnaround to be ready for the Christmas market. I'm told it peaked at #14 on iTunes in the Biography & Memoirs category.

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Comics Code Authority OG

The Comics Code Authority

Graphic Design

January 4, 2014|In Comics, General, Graphic Design

Back in the mid part of the 20th century, the United States lost its collective mind. They had won the Second World War and were nervous about being leaders of the world. Fear set in. Fear of all threats, internal and external.

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John Carter of Mars 2: The Gods of Mars Poster

Graphic Design

A set of teaser posters for John Carter of Mars II: The Gods of Mars. With Disney having let their option lapse after acquiring the Star Wars franchise, perhaps Warner Bros. will explore the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs.

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Frank Schoonover Princess Of Mars Cover OG

eBook: A Princess of Mars Cover by Frank E. Schoonover

Graphic Design

One of the classic editions of Edgar Rice Burroughs' A Princess of Mars is the first printing, published by A.C. McClurg & Co. in 1917. Frank E. Schoonover, a top illustrator of the day, painted the cover and interior plates. Schoonover was a student of the master Howard Pyle – as was NC Wyeth – and there are definite similarities between the artists.

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Tarzan Covers by Neal Adams and Boris Vallejo

Graphic Design

I have to credit Neal Adams for getting me to read my first Edgar Rice Burroughs' book – Tarzan of the Apes – in 1977. Having read his DC Comics work, Neal Adams was the epitome of what comics could be to a 12-year-old boy. That he did some of his best painting work on these covers for Ballantine in 1976 is what drew me to buy the book.

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John Carter of Mars Covers by Michael Whelan

Graphic Design

In 1979, Del Rey/Ballantine Books commissioned Michael Whelan to paint new covers for Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter of Mars novels, succeeding Gino D'Achille's 1973 series.

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We Choose To Go To The Moon

JFK: We Choose to Go to the Moon

Graphic Design

September 12, 2011|In Graphic Design, Stuff

I'm just old enough to remember the last of the Moon landings in the early 70s. It seemed normal, like it was what people did. But the Moon missions were soon cancelled, and we haven't seen a person walking on another planet since. We had to satisfy ourselves with robotic probes like Viking's mission to Mars. And then the shuttle came, but it never got out of orbit.

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The Thunder Child Banner

Graphic Design

January 16, 2011|In Graphic Design, Movies-TV, Sci Fi

Here's a quick project for The Thunder Child blog, done in trade for some SF memorabilia.

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The Starlost Compendium OG

The Starlost Compendium

Graphic Design

The Starlost was a television series that aired primarily on NBC in the U.S. and CTV in Canada during 1973. Created by Harlan Ellison – with technical details on the ship by Ben Bova – it was an early foray into Canadian-American co-production and syndication release.

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eBook: When the Sky Fell

Graphic Design

April 7, 2010|In Books, Graphic Design, Illustration

When the Sky Fell details a scientific theory about Earth crust displacement first put forth by Charles Hapgood, and expanded on by Rand and Rose Flem-Ath. Albert Einstein supported Hapgood's work. The theory also dovetails with Plato's description of the end of Atlantis, and the many flood myths in ancient literature. When the Sky Fell was first published in the 1990s, and I was at one point working on the updated version to be published as an ebook.

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eBook: The Forbidden Manuscript

Graphic Design

April 6, 2010|In Books, Graphic Design

This book is in the vein of The DaVinci Code, and I chose to create the design for it as something more than an average mass-market item.

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Assignment: Earth eBook

Graphic Design

April 3, 2010|In Books, Graphic Design, Movies-TV, Sci Fi

"Assignment: Earth" aired in the spring of 1968 as the last episode of the second season of the original Star Trek. It began, however, as a completely separate pilot script by Gene Roddenberry almost two years earlier.

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Think Different Wallpapers OG

Think Different: Here's to the Crazy Ones

Graphic Design

March 14, 2010|In Graphic Design, Stuff

The Think Different campaign by TBWA\Chiat\Day\Los Angeles for Apple Computer in 1997 is the campaign that shows us advertising can be done for the right reasons and it can benefit the society it speaks to, not merely distract us and part us from our money. Think Different delivered on its promise by promoting a computer that was unlike anything else at the time.

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The Exploration of Space by Arthur C. Clarke

Graphic Design

February 16, 2009|In Books, Graphic Design, Illustration

A few years ago, I approached a publisher of space books with the idea of producing a series of volumes that would reprint the most important texts of the space age. The publisher passed, citing it being outside their business model, and they weren't set up to work with outside designers. I still think it's a good idea.

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The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler

Graphic Design

February 15, 2009|In Books, Graphic Design

This is the third, and probably final, post about Tom Adams' paintings for the works of Raymond Chandler. Below is how The Lady in the Lake appeared when published. Adams left a quiet space at the top of each composition for the title and byline, and in those days that was all that was needed (no excessive marketing text).

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Philip K Dick Bio

eBook: The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick

Graphic Design

My favourite novel was written by Philip K. Dick and first published in 1962. The Man in the High Castle won the 1962 Hugo award, the Oscars of science fiction, for best novel of the year.

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