Lia Ribacchi, Art Director, writes this outstanding feature on the evolution of the Brand Refresh images.

My day is spent leading, coaching, discussing, critiquing, analyzing, trying to find solutions, and reaching compromises. I work with a team of seven in-house graphic designers, and we serve three major departments: Editorial, Product Development, and Marketing (who are making me write this blog post for you). Almost everyone at Dark Horse is “creative,” and in the departments I work with, most prominently Editorial, everyone is an “art director.” None of them gets to hold that unique title though; that’s for me alone. Art director can be a misleading title and can mean virtually anything in the advertising and design world. At Dark Horse, the editors are really the “art directors” of comic-book covers and interiors. They shape and hone, with their creative teams, what the approach and look of a certain project will be. I do something similar, with help and input from all of my staff and rotating players in all the departments, to shape the graphic look of Dark Horse. When explaining my job, I say the Design department does all the packaging for the company, including “packaging” the company. This can include the books themselves, product packaging, book covers, logos, catalogs, websites, advertisements, convention booths, posters, buttons, products, business cards—you name it, we’ve done it.

Last fall we took on an ambitious project to overhaul our visual branding. This was a team effort from key players in Marketing, Editorial, and Design. After a few meetings and many conversations we came up with an approach for our 2011 branding. We wanted a cinematic quality, big hero shots, and a unifying visual message that was strong on identifying our characters and creating a strong brand representation of Dark Horse.

The project broke down into a few phases: art direction, design, and implementation. What you see here is the art phase of the brand refresh. We identified a few characters we wanted to focus on and then found an artist who fit our approach and who could work within our timeline and budget. We gave the artist creative direction, requested sketches, gave feedback, and got another round of sketches. We did some final fine-tuning and wound up with the finished pieces. What you’ll see first is the handiwork of artist Michael Kutsche, followed by the design of the DarkHorse.com homepage, brought to final realization by designer David Nestelle.

 

ROUND 1


There were good starts on the initial round of sketches, but we needed full body shots and some adjustments to the poses.

 

ROUND 2

Here's Liara with more action, Conan more engaged, and Vader intimidating and dramatic. I absolutely love the drapery on his capes!

 

ROUND 3

Randy Stradley, our Star Wars editor, fine-tunes the direction, suggesting flopping the image, altering the stance, and adding some eye glints. 

 

FINAL FROM ARTIST

Michael finishes the pieces.

 

DESIGN ADJUSTMENTS TO BACKGROUND

David adjusts the backgrounds to our brand-refresh blue, evoking a cinematic feeling.

 

FINISHED PIECE ON DARKHORSE.COM HOMEPAGE