Behind the scenes on our landmark 200th issue cover
Today is an exciting day here at Computer Arts as we see issue 200 go on sale in the UK (and if you're a subscriber you'll have it already - lucky you). For 17 years now, we've been bringing you the best in
Issue 200's cover was designed in-house by designer Becca Allen and features a custom typeface called Deux Cents – which you can download as an Illustrator file for commercial or personal use here. "When the brief was set by the editor and art editor, I began playing with type treatments around the number 200. But this was proving problematic – the approach was changed to revolve around a 'Best Design Ever' cover theme, so I began working on a custom typeface."
There were many iterations along the way, with the art and editorial team trying different type and graphical treatments (shown below). In the end, the team decided to pare back the colours and devices.
Art Editor Jo Gulliver then began working on positioning and cover structure. A minimal colour palette was chosen, with Pantone 3262 chosen as an accent colour. But it needed something more.
At this point we spoke to specialist finishers Celloglas about what we could do to add a tactility to the cover. We decided upon a textured black foil (on the 'Design' text) a gold foil and emboss. Gulliver worked closely with Celloglas to make sure the effect could be achieved. "We had to supply several different PDFs to Celloglas – one for each special finish," says Gulliver.
One the artwork was approved, Allen visited Celloglas whilst the cover was being finished. And we filmed the whole thing – from initial ideas through to it coming out of the Heidelberg.
