timemagazine: For this week’s cover story on the... • PARAPHERNALIA

timemagazine:

For this week’s cover story on the “facts” disseminating from both political campaigns, we wanted to capture the sense of being overwhelmed by often contradictory statements in a visual way.

The challenge of creating the typographical portrait (or calligram) of Obama and Romney fell to artist Dylan Roscover, a 22-year-old animator and graphic designer based in Los Angeles. Using statements from the candidates, the campaigns, ads and their supporters, Dylan spent 40 hours painstakingly crafting the cover artwork.

In Dylan’s words:

“The fonts I used are from one of my favorite foundries, Hoefler & Frere-Jones. Sentinel and Mercury define Romney, and Verlag and Archer define Obama. These fonts are very similar to the ones used in their political campaigns. Having grown up in the middle of the digital revolution, I sense a certain lack of patience toward digital work. Instant gratification is more prevalent than ever, and the attitude seems to be that faster is better. Calligram design, like any mosaic form, is inherently slow, even digitally. It’s something that requires an immense amount of patience and dedication, especially to be done well. To me, there are no shortcuts to great work—you need to put in the time somehow. People often ask me, ‘How did you do that?’ The simple fact is, you just have to sit down, start setting type and don’t stop.”

Dylan wasn’t the only one who logged extra hours on this cover. Check out the first round of corrections (above), courtesy of our intrepid copy desk.

— D.W. Pine and Skye Gurney

PARAPHERNALIA

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