Maps--The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

At the WVU Pres I currently have three projects I'm working on simultaneously. I'm still editing the content on the website and I'm still conducting image searches for the book cover of The Pale Light of Sunset. I am also using Photoshop to edit maps of Africa for a book that is obviously about Africa. Anyways, all I do is scan the maps and then drag them into Photoshop to edit the way they look. When I first them them you can see all the tape and inperfections within the lettering and symbols on the maps. My job is to use the tools in Photoshop to correct all of these errors so there are no more inperfections that can lead the eye away from what the map is really trying to convey.

I've had some issues with lining the maps up in the scanner. I actually had to redo an entire map because part of it didn't come through when I scanned it, which was irritating. The borders of the maps are sometimes difficult to fit, so I have to turn the maps a certain way before I can get them to fit. I also have to convert the maps to gray scale and bitmap and save them multiple times. This hasn't really given me any problems, it's just part of the process.

The Pale Light of Sunset

Today, I started doing something totally new at the Press. I was handed a manuscript of a new book titled The Pale Light of Sunset and was told to read part of it and think about what kind of "vibe" it put out. Then, I was told to go on Amazon.com to find book covers that put out a similar vibe to come up with ideas for a cover to the book. I read a little less than half of the manuscript and then started browsing Amazon, still glancing at the text every now and then.
At first, I thought about looking up books on Hitler, which is morbid, but the content of the book is sometimes rather violent, so it fit. Furthermore, there is a part of the book where the main character is outside of a pharmacy during World War II. There is a large poster of Adolf Hitler that people are supposed to put their ciggarettes out on, but the main character doesn't know who he is. I found this to be a profound image and thought it would be interesting, yet controversial to use for a cover.
As I continued to glance over the text, I came up with a few other ideas, most involving either the Hitler image or the American flag and drugs. I say drugs because the book is supposed to be based on hallucinations. The more I read of the text, the more I realized Lee Maynard, the author, writes very similarly to my favorite author, Brett Easton Ellis. This prompted me to look up the cover of the book called Less Than Zero. This book features a hazy picture of the city of LA fading up into white with the title in embossed lettering. I thought since the two author's writing styles were similar, perhaps we could incorporate a similar feel to Maynard's work.
There is a reoccurring theme in the book where the main character always falls down when he hears a gun shot, either hunting with his father or when he sees someone killed in a bar fight. He always falls down. This made me think of perhaps combining the faded, hazy effect on Less Than Zero to Sunset. I thought it would be cool and equally trippy and colorful, to feature a graphic of a shadow or sillouette of a person falling from one corner of the book cover due to a gun "blast" graphic. The person falling could slowly fade into white with some sort of trippy lettering for the title and author lines. I want to keep the trippy, colorful themes not only because they are fun, but because they are totally different from Maynard's other two book covers and I think that is what Than is shooting for. After I came up with all of these ideas, I communicated them to Than, who seemed open to them. He then instructed me to start looking for images on flikr.com of people falling or shadows of falling people. I gathered as many as possible before I left the office with the Grab tool and sent them, with a memo of all of my ideas to Than for him to go over.

Midterm Self-Assessment

It's about half way through my final semester here at WVU and I have a few things to note. Recently, my work at the WVU Press has been going smoothly. I've edited a lot of the web content and am making progress as days go by. I've noticed that getting used to editing and working at the Press has been a process. I first had to get used to my surroundings, which didn't take long because the office is a very open place. I then had to get comfortable with the work I was starting to do. This took a little longer because I had never done anything like this before. I think writing in this blog about the struggles I had initially helped me recognize where I need to focus at work. Most of the time after I would write one of these entries I would re-read it to make sure it made sense and I would retain the comments I made and apply them to work. I think writing down my struggles has helped me overcome them, so that part of my writing and progress is coming along swimingly.

I've been trying to address one issue lately that deals with my professional life and writing. My mother recently got ahold of my resume and decided to alter it a little. And by a little I mean a lot. It looks very professional now, but she added information that doesn't need to be there and some that isn't even true. This was a nice gesture and all, but I have to remedy this before I apply to any other jobs. The thing I've been having an issue with is which information to keep and which to toss. Her draft is about five pages long and I know not all of it needs to be there. My editorial eye is not used to working with so much content in one document all at once, so this will be a different challenge, seeing as I'm currently used to there not being enough to work with. I think this will not only be a good move in terms of my resume, but also in terms of the different ways to look at a document that needs to be edited.