Flash Gordon In Cyberspace: Launching A Rocket Ship Up A Sales Chart

An illustration for the Fall 2010 issue of The Partner Channel Magazine. It was for an article on how Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) need to market their products to reselling partners as something that will grow their business.

I had originally envisioned the rocket bursting through the top of the sales chart (see rough sketch below), but as I worked on the finish it seemed more “realistic” to have it burn a hole in the chart. The first finish looked like this:Before I transmit a finish to a client, I always email myself a small JPEG copy
and take one last look at it. This little pause gives me a chance to see it with fresh eyes.
It didn’t look right: the rocket should be creating some smoke. I went back into Photoshop and added it.

The actual finish is about 18″ wide by 11″ high, and will be used as a two-page spread. The illo is designed to accommodate the “gutter” (the  space between two facing pages
in a magazine): here it will fall about a column-and-a-half into the left side of the sales chart, and the reader won’t lose anything essential. The big open area (top left) is
reserved for the article title and text. The revised finish (below) clearly has a perspective problem: the two desktop surfaces (foreground and background) don’t match– this is what happens when one blithely assumes he can insert a background image (in this
case a manipulated photo) at the end and all will be fine and dandy (blush). Scroll
down to see the original rough sketches (different concepts).