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Our Portland Story has been actively seeking local design talent since January of 2009. Over the course of the past seven months, we have been meeting with several designers a week, going over the project and matching them up with a story that fits their particular design/illustration style and interests. Since all 77 stories get a page in the book, and every page in the book is assigned a different designer, this has been a long, but rewarding process. There are 11 pages yet to be assigned to a designer, so if you are a designer interested in contributing a page, please contact melissa@ourportlandstory.com.
Portland photographer, Bryan Hoybook, met up with OPS page designer, Matt Morasky, of Citizengraphics to document Matt’s creative process for his OPS page on camera. Matt was assigned the story “Old Town Chinatown Chinese” by Brian T. Wilson. This story takes you on a journey through Chinatown’s various food offerings complete with the author’s recommendations. The author writes: “I quite often hear people say that Chinatown is disappearing, but we still have more than a half-dozen restaurants to choose from daily. Many only eat in Chinatown for lunch, but there is a notable amount that go for a morning or Sunday dim sum. I often suggest families go to House of Louie or, for someone looking specifically for dim sum, I direct them to Wong Kee. For friends and residents, I often do a cheer for Mandarin House…”
Matt concepted and sketched several ideas that combined photos he took, with the text and images that Brian provided, and Chinese restaurant menu scans. Matt’s final design concept (shown above, right) was described by him as the following: “…this approach plays off the travel/tourist guide. Speech balloons carry the copy like a narrative. In the background, the city blocks that make up Chinatown are constructed of cut paper copies of Chinese food menus (taken from the Golden Horse). The top title is an illustrated version of the Old Town Chinatown MAX stop.”
Thanks to Matt, for letting us take a peek into your design process and thanks to Bryan for the photography. Please view a sampling of other completed OPS pages on our facebook page.