From concept to photography to hand modelling to layout. Here's how the June @graphicarts cover came to be.

It's been a while since I've had the chance to do a full magazine cover from concept to execution, and compared to my previous tries this one actually worked out reasonably well. 

The lead article is about augmented reality, and WTF it has to do with print. So I had the idea of giving an example of how it could work for people who might not be too familiar with some of its applications. My first idea was to do a WordLens type view on a foreign city at night through an iPad.

First took a series of quick handheld shots of me holding an iPad.

...and mocked it up using an image I found of some city in Japan and a white iPad frame. But it looked kinda crappie, so I swapped it with an iPhone.

Here I was just a little curious about the scale of it.

Armed with a tripod and an iPhone, I went for a walk down the street and took a couple dozen shots in a couple locations.

...as well as a few screen caps using an ubercool augmented reality app, Yelp.

Once I got home a few of the images were thrown together.

Back at the office a little enhancement and light humour were injected.

Based on group input we worked out a few more variations...

...until we were able to settle on one final version. And now we're off to press. Fingers crossed.