Economix & Green Inc. Blog Headers

The Times is in the process of beef­ing up its busi­ness cov­er­age online, adding new ver­ti­cals on the econ­omy and green energy. As part of that roll out, we launched two blogs last week, and I was tasked with the header designs and illus­tra­tion assignments.

I really enjoy the lit­tle bits of art direc­tion that I get to do at the Times. It’s fun to search for the illus­tra­tors, work with them on con­cepts and sketches, and in the end they do all of the work.

Economix

Illus­tra­tion by Head­case Design

Economix is writ­ten by David Leon­hardt and Cather­ine Ram­pell, and will focus on both the global econ­omy and the per­sonal deci­sions read­ers make everyday.

The illus­tra­tion was done by Paul Kepple’s team at Head­case Design, with art direc­tion and design by myself.

Edi­to­r­ial wanted to avoid any­thing that smacked too much of an Econ 101 lec­ture, so we went with this jug­gling con­cept. It reflects the acces­si­ble tone of the writ­ing, while key­ing in the deci­sion mak­ing angle.

I did an illus­tra­tion that was a lit­tle drier (below), that made use of one of the most basic con­cepts of eco­nom­ics – the demand curve. It was rejected by Edi­to­r­ial, but I thought that it was worth tak­ing a crack at.

Green Inc.

Illus­tra­tion by Peter Hoey

Green Inc. is edited by Tom Zeller Jr., and will focus on how busi­nesses and con­sumers are respond­ing to cli­mate change and the scarcity of fos­sil fuels.

The illus­tra­tion was done by Peter Hoey, with art direc­tion and design by myself.

In this one, we took that famil­iar comic book sym­bol of sud­den inspi­ra­tion – light bulb inside of a thought bub­ble – and gave it a “green” twist.

I’m really happy with the jobs that both Paul and Peter did on this, and I’m look­ing for­ward to work­ing with both in the future. Here are some more screenshots:

Economix blog at nytimes.com

Illus­tra­tion by me that was rejected.

Green Inc. blog at nytimes.com