Engine Punk

I had a good graphic design session with Rebecca Morton at Red Snapper last night. You'll have heard of Beck before on this blog. Dammit - you'll have eaten yoghurt from the pots she designed for Rachel's Organic Yoghurt and seen her work on the Milk Marque lorries. Here she is in action, pointing out something important I hadn't spotted. Of course, as soon as she'd shown me what was wrong it was obvious. She also showed me the amazing things the full verison of Photoshop can do. Well, some of them anyway. "Look how easily I can get rid of the blemishes," she said. "What blemishes?" I replied. I'd been really careful not to get oily fingerprints on my work but there they were. And then there they were - gone. In the hands of an expert like Beck the results were frankly mind blowing - and so quick to make! We've experimented with a couple of ideas but the favourite so far seems to be a refined version of that mugged togethe...

Here's the new cover illustrations for The Horsepower Whisperer . As with any picture on this blog or the one known as Engine Punk if you click on the image you'll see a large image. I was happy enough with the earlier cover design for some time but as soon as I'd revamped my website it looked a little staid. I realized I could do better and ever since then my publishing adventure has been on hold while I embarked on a remembering-how-to-paint trip. I donned blinkers and stopped doing many of the other things I enjoy like writing and welding in my determination to add as much pizzazz as I could to my covers. It became an obsession and I entered that dark tunnel where you strive for perfection knowing that it is really an impossible dream. I never really know what keeps me going during these times for there are no travelling companions but at last I have emerged, blinking in the sunlight, reconciled to the lack of perfection but reasonably happy with the result. It’s be...

There's been a hive of activity here recently at Anarchadia Publishing. Over the Christmas and New Year period, I worked up The Wormton Lamb into a state where it can at last be sent to Caroline Petherick (Magic Words), my editor. And now I've got it back! It seems that having collaborated on The Horsepower Whisperer we know how each other works and the whole process has been reduced, in terms of time, by a factor of at least ten. Now I have to go through and approve or discard her recommended changes. This is actually very enjoyable work and I'm looking forward to it but first I need to do some more publicity work. Most of this is for The Horsepower Whisperer. This book needs its chance first. But that's no problem because I can barely contain my excitement about what I've been up to recently! I'm not sure if it can be done but if not I can use the drawings for something else. Meanwhile the book cover has been developed with Red Snapper (Rebecc...

The proof is here and it looks fantastic! Lightning Source have done a great job and addressed the minor quibbles I had. My rendering for the front cover is sharper than ever and the red go-faster strip is redder than I thought possible. Inside, the paper is really white and the text looks blacker than other books. It looks so vivid. Most of them seem to use a down market yellowy paper that might be made out of straw. And I think the publishers should have a quiet word with their printers for, by comparison with Lightning Source's results, I think their printers might be watering the ink. The cover for The Horsepower Whisperer looks like it's powered by batteries! Either that or I'm feeling euphoric. I haven't seen Bex yet to receive her graphic design analysis. She's probably practising for the London marathon. We're working on the cover for The Wormton Lamb and I got the first version two days with a very excited e-mail about getting excepted fo...

Initial euphoria later gave way to a more critical appraisal of the end product Here I am with my galley proof. It arrived yesterday and Becky of Redsnapper captured the moment in pixels. Overall it looks fantastic. We'll have to re-submit because some minor things aren't quite right. I've already re-jigged the text matter. Word had re-formatted a paragraph with double spacing. It's clear that I can't trust it at all. I'll have to review every page of the pdf file before I re-submit. Thanks to Beck the outside looks really good. In fact the back cover looks even better than the front, although you can't see it so you'll just have to take my word for it (but not my Microsoft Word!) However, we have a cunning plan and a revised version is already in preparation. It's just amazing to think that after months, years even, when my book wasn't even a collection of disparate files, I can now flick through its pages, sniff the glue (what ...

A background sketch from the Anarchadia website is this working drawing for the Cadillac Platinumide I’ll have a go at most things and this website is largely my own effort but after years of doing–it–myself and practising self–reliance, I have discovered that sometimes – sometimes – it’s better to get an expert to do it for you.  It depends whether you want to learn how to do it or not. You may never need to do it ever again. It also depends how long it takes to reach a reasonable standard. Do you have the time or do you want a quick result? And, most importantly in my opinion, it depends if you enjoy it. If you don’t I believe it shows. With the website, I was lucky – beginner’s luck, I suppose. I had a brilliant book to refer to. I wouldn’t have got anywhere without Build your website the right way using HTML & CSS by Ian Lloyd. Not only was I able to get the something together that worked but I began to understand how it worked. If I had any problems I used the S...