Photoshop Magic, Press Week & Ghost Stories

[ A collab between me and Vincent - VanGogh that is. ]

Here's a last minute photoshop masterpiece I threw together for an editorial layout I did for the magazine this month. I was so swamped this month and this got left till the last day... literally the day that I was uploading the magazine to press I was intermittently finishing this layout. (Don't try this at home kids.) In my defense we were down two extraordinary designers (shout out to Jen Hood and Sara Wilkins!) and I was left all on my lonesome.

After pondering the "what ifs" and imagining my boss strangling me (like Homer so lovingly does Bart) for not getting the layout done, I decided to shoot a prayer up to the Big Man and just get cookin. Here's what I came up with. I was half inspired by the spread in this month's Esquire on Keri Russell, which is funny since my topic was Ghost Stories of Orange County. They have nothing in common, but the elements seemed to work for both. That's the beauty of design ain't it? The other half of my inspiration came from finding out that this amazing Van Gogh painting, "Skeleton with Burning Cigarette" was copyright free. I've always wanted to use it in a layout, and with the Halloween themed Ghost Stories article it was perfect! So I photoshopped it together with some other graphics of indian head dresses and feathers since one of the haunted tales featured an indian massacre... a hellofa lot of clone stamping later and voila!

[The Esquire layout. They're such geniuses over there. Sorry for the crappy quality - it's from my iPhone.]

[ My end result. Click to Enlarge. ]

- Amy

On my blip.fm: Sea Wolf's "Leaves In The River." 

If you've never heard it, google it. It's so beautiful and it's about falling in love on Halloween. I have a soft spot for all things Halloween since besides being an all around fun day it's my birthday.