Design + Art Direction
Samples below. For an exhaustive array of mostly collaborative books, publications and digital projects, please visit designSimple.com, where I was an art director, designer and project manager from 2007 to 2024.
Books
The Vallance Bible
By Jeffrey Vallance
Grand Central Press
32 pages; hardcover; leather-bound
This was a fun solo project, based on popular 19th-century bible layouts. Casebound in leather (another edition in faux leather), with gilded edges and a bright red ribbon to hold your place, so you don’t get lost in the afterlife.
The Mudd Club
By Richard Boch
Feral House
320 pages; paperback
Another designSimple project. The author worked as a doorman during the heyday of the famed Lower Manhattan club, and his tales are many, some fascinating. The creative director was not crazy about my lowbrow type design, but he allowed it, and I still think it works, maybe.
The Lotus Kitchen
By Skip Jennings & Gwen Kenneally
Huqua Press
118 pages
During my years at designSimple, we created six or eight cookbooks for Huqua Press. This wasn’t my favorite, but it was an interesting challenge, design-wise: A traditional cookbook surrounded by recipe-specific yoga practices flowing as sidebars along the outer edges.
Media Packaging
Tony Gilkyson
Avenging Angel
Rolling Sea Records
CD package design. Art direction by TG; cover art by Lou Beach; photography by Issa Sharp.
Magazines + Art Catalogs
Artillery
Los Angeles–based art magazine
Creative Director: Bill Smith
Me, Dave: Art director, designer
Jeffrey Vallance: Rudis Tractus
Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles, 2016
Catalog in the style of a field guide
Jeffrey Vallance: The Medium is the Message
CB1 Gallery, Los Angeles, 2015
Edward Cella Art & Architecture, Los Angeles, 2016
Catalog + Poster for performance
Brain World
New York–based science and sociology magazine
Creative Director: Bill Smith
Me, Dave: Art director, designer
