Stefan Bucher has been with 826LA since the very beginning, serving as the creative mind behind many of the Time Travel Mart products we all know and love. Here, he tells us about his collaboration with 826LA on “Rewriting the Zombie Apocalypse,” the cover of which was included in the 2015 Communication Arts Typography Annual! 

Another entry in my long-running collaboration with 826LA, “Rewriting the Zombie Apocalypse” is a collection of short stories about…wait for it…the zombie apocalypse, written by the students of Mr. Ochi’s biology class at Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles. It’s one of those quick little “Do you have a few minutes?” assignments that find me in the right hour of the right day. The minute I see them, an idea pops into my head, and everything just falls into place quickly and easily.

In this case, I figured that L.A. zombies wouldn’t just start roaming the streets looking for brains, they’d go to Whole Foods. Or to the artisanal brainery on Abbott-Kinney. Based on that I created a zombie-specific version of an old butcher shop wall that lists all the various brain prices. I inserted two “Young Frankenstein” references (because I had to), along with a melon/Mellon pun, and a nod to Pi. The background is a reference to the butcher papers of my youth. These things aren’t particularly difficult once you have a basic idea.

The interior is pretty straightforward—just classic typesetting with a bit of flair for each title. I did need a quick little illustration for the divider pages and went back to the archives for a brain I’d drawn in 1997.

Click here to read the full post on Stefan’s website.