Final work: centre-spread anamorphic illusion
Situation
Every December, New Scientist publishes a special issue of the magazine containing a ‘practical task’ feature for readers to complete during the festive holiday. I created the December 2020 issue.
For this project, a centre-spread and a single page on the reverse of the spread had been reserved.
There were two parts to this commission:
Part 1: An anamorphic illustration to be printed across the centre spread of the magazine.
Part 2: On the reverse side, a short editorial piece on the history of anamorphic art, and a sequential tutorial on how a reader could produce their own anamorphic illustration.
Part 2 was the more complex of the two parts and would include written editorial content and a grid would need to be supplied. I created some mock-ups to explain the concept:
I then produced draft instructions for readers to follow – these would be reproduced in the magazine on the single page.
For more adventurous readers, I also produced three additional, more complex/
challenging grids – they would be available for download, along with detailed instructions on how to use them.
challenging grids – they would be available for download, along with detailed instructions on how to use them.
With the more complex Part 2 largely completed, I focused on Part 1: the feature anamorphic illustration.
After exploring a range of concepts, I arrived at the idea of the New Scientist logotype passing through a Penrose triangle. A very simple digital mock-up is shown below - both in the 'resolved' view (left) and the 'open' view (right).
I further refined the idea, reorienting and colouring the letterforms and adding in the Penrose triangle geometry.
I added a number of stylistic and textural touches in Photoshop.
I added further tweaks across the entire illustration, adding planets, shooting stars, a satellite, a vortex (later to be removed), and an astronaut.
With Part 1 close to final, I created full instructions to accompany the two more complex grids for Part 2. These show the steps required to produce one's own anamorphic art across more adventurous grids:
The final page for Part 2, printed in the magazine:
And finally, the final feature illustration - in the 'resolved' view and the 'open' view.
