My brother Tim has been a professional storyteller long enough to be invited (in 2025) to perform at the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, Tennessee. The audience—fans of oral folk traditions—were still consumers of physical media, so Tim asked me to develop a design for a CD and a folding cardboard sleeve.
The folk tales from Europe that Tim often tells distinguish him among American storytellers, who gravitate towards confessional stories and personal recollection. Tim wanted the design to quickly communicate this distinction.
The CD begins with a retelling of The Frog Prince, a character Tim had revisited a few times over the years, and ends with a tale of The Frog Princess.
I also designed this postcard from the San Francisco Fringe Festival, in 2000.
I began with the shape of a frog with its fingers outstretched towards a golden crown. I added other animals that recur in these tales: a snake, and a lark.
For the type I landed on Elfreth, a modern-feeling, highly-legible blackletter by James Hultquist-Todd. Its variable weight and width allowed me to flex across the package surfaces.
You can listen to Long Ago and Far Away on Bandcamp.