I am incredibly proud to report that as of April 2015 I have started working for TOR/FORGE (one of my favorite publishing imprints) as a cover designer.
It was in my second year of college where I really fell in love with cover design. Like with many things we develop new interests and pursue different directions, but I have never lost my appreciation for the print process, effects, and creativity it takes to design a book jacket.
I am excited to present a new section to my website that will feature original covers that I am and have worked on.
Cover art and design by Micaela Alcaino.
Art direction by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover art by David Seidman
Cover design and direction by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover art by Matt Griffin.
Cover design and direction by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover art and design by Kate Forrester.
Art direction by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover art by Lindsey Spinks.
Art direction by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover art by Adam Larkum.
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg.
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Cover design by Russell Trakhtenberg
Over the years I have created a wide variety of printed advertisments that would be featured in Marvel Comics, Romantic Times, New York Times, Fantasy Realms...
I started my career working on simple black and white ads as a freelancer and a full time employee. And to this day I take alot of pride in magazine related advertisments.
Styxx is a #1 bestselling novel from the very prolific Sherrilyn Kenyon
I emulated the red colors on the cover to give this ad a bit more drama and dimension. The headline surrounded by the fighters brings the whole ad to life.
Young adult publishing is alive and well.
This ad uses orange colors to indicate the autumn pumpkin carving season and 3d book shots featuring spines to really give it a bit more oomph! What I love is that the ad has a great headline, minimal copy, and stands out as both spooky without the comedy relief.
It's a long title, but the work involved in the digital, web medium is usually very cross-over based. In my experience I haev had to create E-cards that informed the user about a new sweepstakes landing page. And of course Web Ads that would direct the user to the Website.
Webdesign and development is a wonderful topic that I have had the pleasure of working on for over 3 years.
The novel Z was a huge success, catching the amazing roaring 20s vibe that has been sweeping our culture in the last couple of years. Set to launch around the same time as The Great Gatsby, the creative services team was given the project of creating a fully interactive Zelda drag and drop game. My job was to develop the interface, the functions, the interaction. In short turn the doll and outfits, the UI design. hand drawn by Maggie Lam, Danielle Imperiale, and Sara Hammer into a working site. It was tough but very rewarding, and the reception was terrific.
A Holiday e-vite for the author of the Hello Kitty series.
A beautiful cover and a terrific series. This was a freelance project for Henry Holt. The book is fairly dark and the E-card needed to reflect just that. We also needed to show the other two books in the series, and create a social media connection to the author and series as well.
I love Bill Nye so this was awesome to work on. Along with these web ads, facebook images, and twitter headers, I also worked on his Advance Manuscript back cover, a series of ads both digital and print, bookmarks and postcards. It was a large campaign and we did a great job representing this brilliant man.
This terrific little logo was fun to make. the colors are subtle, the use of white works well for almost anything. I created it with the thought of it being used on various websites. Both as a promotional item, cover, and logo.
Jumping right into animation and editing has been one of the best decisions I have made, career wise. While I definitly feel there is a lot of room to expand by using 3d animation, combining original audio, there is definitly a large area for growth and creativity.
Moving Young Adult story about love, loss, and time travel.
Who needs standard presentations when you can highlight awesome achievements of one of the best authors in teen-lit today using After Effects. This video uses elements and quirks from Rainbow Rowells novels including fan art, my favorite part.
This magical-realism novel takes palce in the back of an indie-book store, so it only made sense to use the covers books as a waterfall. The flow of the type mixed with the Book shelf movement, set to the easy melody really make this commercial shine.
While this video never saw a full completition. The project being two chapters with a visual aid all under 30 seconds or so, I still love what we were able to achieve with the parisian skyline, the magical cityscape that i composed with trusty photoshop. And some great eerie music.
Tor Teen sci-fi thriller!
Photography is something that has eluded me until i began studying in college. Somewhere along the road I gave up on it and avoided it all together. Recently however my good friend and master photographer Richard Rivera, has really inspired me to start looking at the color and shapes around the object in focus.
Ever since I could remember I have been doodling. At times the doodles turned into sketches, and at other times the sketches turned into attempts at painting. None of which are very good ,but maybe someday...
Dark, desolate, lonely and cold. This is Naggaroth the home of the Warhammer Fantasy Dark Elves.
I wanted the piece to have alot of tension between the very sky and the earth. The contrasting red and barren ground appear to be at war with each other and that is precisely how i have always viewed the Dark Elf Mythos beings torn between their inherit morality and their turning to the evil side.
Not going to say much about this, except it was a slow work day. I was bored.
I looked at a book pile on my old cubicle desk, and decided to add the ridiculous vase that stillifes have become known for. What's the bird about. Well I was just getting into the show Portlandia. ("put a bird on it")
I am obssessed with evolution. More importantly the culture that existed with other species of hominid. This sketch was based on the last Neandertal man, faced with his extinction.
