Cover Story - Cloud Computing
We had a lot of meetings trying to conceptualise cloud computing. Wild and crazy and increasingly desperate directions were all explored and explored and explored. In the end it came down to a phone call with Josh, me and him throwing increasingly lamer and lamer ideas at each other, that ended something like this..
Josh - “Well how about we just fill an office with a load of dry ice”.
Pause.
Me - “Yeah ok, lets just do that”
And thus the buck was skillfully passed at 5pm on a Friday afternoon to David (Photo Director) to hire a photographer, find an office, a smoke machine, fill the office with smoke and record the event by Tuesday lunchtime. He chose Fredrik Broden whose done some great covers for us (Here, here). He shot on Monday, with the results feeding in over the course of the day.
The first pic we got from Fredrik looked like the guy’s head had just combusted (#1), so we shifted the cloud down (#2). Then we got rid of the office scene (#3) which was too fussy and distracting, then got rid of the businessman’s upper body which was equally distracting, before pulling back a bit and keeping his hand and phone (#5, the final cover image). We just kept on reducing it, distilling the idea to it’s essence, removing everything apart from what we needed.
It’s funny as despite the huge amounts of ideas we went through at the start, this was pretty much the exact sketch I drew on a scrap of paper (I promise - its a cloud with legs, trust me) in one of the first meetings we had to discuss the cover. But I just thought it was too dumb an idea. Which actually it is/was. It’s just all in Fredrik’s expert camera (and smoke machine) skills that it’s saved.
