Marc Pechart

Cold Britannia cover November 1998 - Since 1991, The Big Issue offers homeless people in the UK the opportunity to earn a legitimate income by producing a weekly entertainment and current affairs magazine. For more information: www.bigissue.com With the tiniest of budgets, Art Direction required constant inventiveness to find low cost Design solutions with the help of good-willing top photographers and illustrators. Cold Britannia B&W cover photography: Kevin Cummins (www.myspace.com/kevin_cummins)

Magazine Covers - Cover topics regularly alternated between celebrities and current affairs. Running scared: The article's subject - a police informer - opposed to any photo-session, we designed this Hardboiled fiction spoof using Photoshop filters for a grunge paperback look. Tim Roth portrait: Stefan De Batselier (www.facebook.jp/people/Stefan-de-Batselier/1652408584) Underworld picture: Steve Double (http://www.double-whammy.com/). Che Barbie: in-house montage.

Current affairs covers & spreads - Current affairs cover stories often pushed us to create visuals from scratch. "Secrets For Sale" image was a montage of 2 pictures (a close-up of the staff's blue eye and an old lock) shot in the office. The AWOL cover story visual was a set of plastic toy soldiers directly scanned prior to extensive Photoshop retouching. The "Asylum seekers" cover incorporated flags from Eastern Europe countries, one of the main source of UK's asylum seekers in the late 90s.

Various covers & spreads - Photoshop montage was regularly used to enhance layouts look: from punk style (Mel C), boxing memorabilia (Fat Boy Slim) to digital composition (Bowie). The eight years anniversary spread was a selection of snapshots "from the streets" displaying subliminally the number 8. Mel C, Fatboy Slim pictures: Steve Double David Lynch session: Amy & Tanveer. Jerry Springer portrait: Kevin Cummins. James Bond illustration: David Lyttleton (www.davidlyttleton.com).

Entertainment covers & spreads - Examples of special features where we generated our own image sources instead of using bog-standard publicity shots. Star Wars: including artwork from the genial Jake (www.jake-art.com) whose Jedi obsession culminated at www.jakestarwars.com. Music issue 2000: the opportunity for notorious horror movie poster artist, Graham Humphreys (www.grahamhumphreys.com) to sink his werewolf canines into dinosOasis' Gallagher brothers as well as revamping Pulp's Jarvis Cocker.

B&W features - 50% of each issue was printed in B&W but by no mean were these pages neglected design-wise. It was the perfect place to try new talents or force regular contributors out of their comfort zone; see above goth photographer Stefan De Batselier put hairy rock icons aside to focus on street vendors' pets, Pirate radios topic illustrated by established caricaturist Carl Flint (www.carlflint.com) and Old School hip-hop freak Jake's work - inspired by Wu Tang's "C.R.E.A.M"? - for an IMF/WTO article.

PDF Spreads 1998/1999 - Photoshop montage was regularly used to enhance layouts look: from punk style (Mel C), boxing memorabilia (Fat Boy Slim) to digital composition (Bowie). The eight years anniversary spread was a selection of snapshots "from the streets" displaying subliminally the number 8. Mel C, Fatboy Slim pictures: Steve Double David Lynch session: Amy & Tanveer. Jerry Springer portrait: Kevin Cummins. James Bond illustration: David Lyttleton (www.davidlyttleton.com).
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PDF Covers 1998/1999 - Cover topics regularly alternated between celebrities and current affairs. Running scared: The article's subject - a police informer - opposed to any photo-session, we designed this Hardboiled fiction spoof using Photoshop filters for a grunge paperback look. Tim Roth picture: Stefan De Batselier (www.facebook.jp/people/Stefan-de-Batselier/1652408584) Underworld picture: Steve Double (http://www.double-whammy.com/). Che Barbie: in-house montage.
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