All posts by Howard Tayler

Essays

Banner Tweaking

Here’s a quick comparison between drafts of my GenCon 2014 banners. On the left, the banner I thought was the final one. On the right, the one that we used after I let the design “bake” in my brain a bit.

GenCon 2014 Banner, designed by Howard, using cover art from Privateer Press, Carter Reid, Julie Dillon, and his own hand.
GenCon 2014 Banner designed by Howard. Art by Howard, Julie Dillon, Carter Reid, and artists at Privateer Press
HowardBanner-5x7-2014-WEB
GenCon 2014 Banner designed by Howard. Art by Howard, Julie Dillon, Carter Reid, and artists at Privateer Press

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see  the difference? The big change was swapping XDM and SHADOWS BENEATH. For branding purposes, the original layout made it look like SHADOWS BENEATH was a Schlock cover. With XDM running interference, though, SHADOWS BENEATH gets to be its own thing.

I also changed the text effect on my name. The wavy effect was cool, but on a fabric banner it will make people thing the banner is hanging badly. The slight arch with the forward lean (the one on the left) will look much better, especially since people will be looking up at that spot.

This project killed an entire day, and that final tweak was made during three hours I could have spent writing. But I needed to make the tweak, and I didn’t know what exactly it was until I started nudging things around.

Journal

I hate loving these pills…

Struggled to get anything done this morning. Made a little progress banging on two possible scripts for Sunday, August 24th. Not working.

Went shopping with my 11yo to clear my head. Got home and decided to take a white pill (20mg, 4-hour methylphenidate — it’s basically a short-term ritalin). Aaaand BANG. I’m able to script again.  Wrote an all-new August 24th strip, then the next three days of the week. Then I brain-dumped into the outline and it all flowed gloriously.

I love the white pill, but I hate needing it.

Essays, Journal

Write It, or Live It?

Aside

I found the following gem while searching through my old Live Journal posts. Excerpted, it’s almost profound:

My life would seem more interesting to everyone else if I could strike some sort of balance between writing about it and living it, but more and more I’m finding that, when time permits, I prefer to allow my life to seem completely uninteresting to the rest of the world, and absolutely, fascinatingly packed with all the big and little things that make it wonderful for me and a few first-hand observers.

–Howard Tayler