Design Work Life: Cataloging Inspiration Daily

A Map in the Dirt is a short story by Utah-based artist, Jess Smart Smiley about a group of ani­mals try­ing to escape a com­mon threat. The strik­ing black and white illus­tra­tions were all done with ink and a brush on bris­tol board. And all of the let­ter­ing, which I am truly impressed with, was done by hand as well.

Jess is cur­rently try­ing to make the 15-page comic into a 6×9, per­fect bound book, by pro­mot­ing it on Kickstarter. There you can check out a video to learn more about Jess’s process and the book specif­i­cally, as well as con­tribute to the project to help him reach his goal. The vary­ing lev­els of con­tri­bu­tion which will get you all kinds of rewards, from access to the A Map in the Dirt blog to a giant col­or­ing poster to an orig­i­nal page of art­work from the book. Jess has just about 40 days to reach his goal, so head on over and throw some sup­port his way.