The year is drawing to a close and that can mean only one thing — year end lists. This is an illustration I did for Folio: looking at the magazine industry's big winners for 2009.
Early on in the process AD Dan Trombetto suggested a victorious publisher bursting off the cover of a magazine. Something like this:
Or, perhaps, this:
For good measure, I threw in this alternative:
When this job started we were working from a pretty limited synopsis. Right after my sketches showed up, so did the final version of the story. The big winners of ’09 were the folks who figured out how to make money outside of the traditional printed product. Perhaps we should have known given the dismal state of the publishing industry. There wasn't a single traditional magazine among the list, so it was back to the drawing board.
A lot the big winner made money on the internet. So I offered this variation on some earlier ideas:
As well as a more generic approach:
And finally this:
I thought it made sense, since the big winners actually reached the end of the year, whereas many publications didn't. Dan and his editors agreed. I think they got the right one.
If you're interested in the story read it in its entirety here.
