You may have noticed a new advertiser on our little sidebar called Whigby. If you click on their ad you will find a myriad of fun paper products including witty cards, adorable gift wrap, art posters and other goodies. The company was started by Frank Viva and Todd Temporale who also run a design agency in Toronto called Viva & Co. Frank happens to be an exceptional illustrator, and recently did a very sweet cover for The New Yorker. I asked Frank if he would share his sketchbooks, so we could get a taste of his process of working on such prestigious projects. Besides keeping regular sketchbooks and moleskins, Frank has just made himself a new sketchbook for planning more covers for The New Yorker. He printed a blank New Yorker cover, complete with the logo, at half size on bunch of sketch paper and Cerlox bound the pages into a book at Kinkos. This way he can make little mock covers and easily sketch to fit into their format. Below he’s shared two rejected comps for covers about the Oscars. Besides working on editorial projects, Frank is working on his first children’s book called Along a Long Road which will be coming out later this year from HarperCollins. Big thanks to Frank for participating in our series. We’ll be keeping up with his work here in the future.

© Julia Rothman 2007