Hell-lo, huge sword. This cover isn’t compensating for anything, though. Great action pose with the wolf and the sword, terrific color palette, and even a killer mustache. The cherry on top is the overall detailing, from the weathered logo to the blood drop behind the issue number. —LEONG

The cover art, of course, is by the German Wonder that is Nic Klein.
Personally I’m quite happy to see this cover has been chosen, as its one of my favourites of the whole series.

You can see all of the VIKING covers I’ve designed at my site, or have a look at the design process of the logo.

Looking forward, next year will see the release of the 1st VIKING collection, and with that, the brand new logo & trade dress of the series. Stay tuned for more!

WIWP is having a site overhaul at the moment, so in the meantime you can buy the poster HERE from their Flickr shop.

Just in time for that perfect holiday gift!

• Hellblazer #261 (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Batman & Robin #6 (DC Comics)
• Powers #1 (Marvel/ICON)
• Astonishing X-Men #32 (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Armor Wars #2 (of 4) (Marvel Comics)
• Ultimate Avengers #3, 4 (Marvel Comics)
• Captain America Reborn #4 (of 5) (Marvel Comics)
• Fantastic Four #572, 573 (Marvel Comics)
• Image United #1 (of 6) (Image Comics)
• Haunt #2 (Image Comics)
• Phonogram — The Singles Club #5 (Image Comics)
• VIKING #4 (Image Comics)
• Hellboy — The Wild Hunt #8 (of 8) (Dark Horse Comics)
• B.P.R.D. 1947 #4 (Dark Horse Comics)
• Sir Edward Grey: Witchfinder #5 (of 5) (Dark Horse Comics)
• Abe Sapien: The Haunted Boy (Dark Horse Comics)
• Gravel #15 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Chronicles of Wormwood: The Last Battle #1 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Ignition City #5 (Painted cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Supergod #1 (Wrap cover variant) (Avatar Press)
• Scalped Book 5 “High Lonesome” (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• Luna Park Graphic Novel (DC/Vertigo Comics)
• The Wintermen TPB Collection (DC/Wildstorm Comics)
• Seductive Espionage: The World of Yuki 7 (Fleet Street Scandal)

Cover design for the 5th issue and final chapter of the current story arc of comic series VIKING by Ivan Brandon & Nic Klein (Image Comics).

This is the last issue of the current logo design and cover treatment as it is, and I'm working on a few options for the next chapter and collected edition.

Art by Nic Klein, design by me.

Since 2005 Kleber has converted to what you can call a “virtual” company — meaning we got rid of our office in London in favour of working remotely from our homes. Since we’re a small studio to begin with and have been working together for a long time it was a painless transition, and we’re in touch with each other every day via phone, IM and email.

As far as location is concerned… We’re currently spread out all over the UK with people in Sheffield, London (me) and the South-East — and have no problems whatsoever with being available for clients (we can easily meet them at their offices), and the luxury of working from home is second to none. Location these days is not important. With a proper internet connection and a phone you can work for anyone, anywhere at any time.

The theme of the CR issue was largely inspired by the excellent Studio Culture book from Unit Editions (Tony Brook+Adrian Shaughnessy). Its quite an interesting topic to discuss, partly because of the inherit voyeuristic tendency we have to have a peek into other people’s work place, but also to see how they actually work… and there seem to be largely 2 categories: the ultra-clean white Vitra/Vitsœ setup (Modernism by numbers?), or the Ikea/2nd hand/whatever works interior that kind of organically grows over the years.

Personally I’d love to one day have a wall covered in Vitsœ shelving — although Mrs M is an advocate for the democratic Billy book case. When reading about other studios and looking at photos of their work environment its always pretty obvious that the ones with all the high spec “design must-haves” impress you first time round, but on second thought they all look a bit soulless at times. And while I like some of that clinical minimalism, I personally prefer a bit of organized chaos. And Mrs M has a keen eye to combine Modern with Vintage or Ikea, to create an environment that looks alive. Even now, after more than 10 years of having worked at, and seen, different work space setups I still haven’t found my “perfect” work environment at home.
I’m pretty happy with how my work space has been for the past 3 years (constantly evolving), but there’s always that nagging “Hmm, how about a bigger desk? Should I get that extra shelving?”. But then I get rightly told of by Mrs M who has a more practical eye on things and keeps me in check while I try to convince her that maybe one Vitsœ unit in the office wouldn’t hurt ;).

Photo of my home studio, featured in the November 2009 issue of Creative Review, which — inspired by Unit Editions' "Studio Culture" book — focuses on workplaces: what they look like and what you do there, featuring CR readers from around the world.

First of all, there’s nothing wrong with the portfolio CMS. For most its an incredibly useful (and timesaving) tool to publish their work online in a structured and direct manner, foregoing unnecessary visual clutter for a focus on content.

But.

What started as something that grew out of a personal need (Daniel Eatock needing a system for his portfolio, and then releasing it to the world as Indexhibit) has become the goal in itself it seems. Your portfolio is only as good as the CMS you’re using. Me? Yes, I have accounts at Cargo and Krop — but I still have to use them. The reason why I don’t want to make the jump is because despite the qualities of both systems there would be more focus on the fact that its a Cargo or Krop portfolio instead of a Muller portfolio. See what I’m getting at?

When Indexhibit was launched, it felt like a real invisible tool that would allow you to publish your work: no fussy styling, no branding — just the work. With each subsequent system that gets launched the CMS branding becomes more prominent, taking focus away from the work. The success of Indexhibit sparked a trend of portfolio systems, some hosted (Cargo, Krop, Behance,…), others where you need to put in some extra work (Indexhibit, Core,…), with people racing to get private beta invites (yes, guilty as charged) to see what the fuss is about. While some systems make perfect sense —Krop is a job board, so why not integrate a portfolio, and Cargo grew out of a modular gallery system — while I get the feeling others are being created as a means in itself. Is it the new black?

Is it because designers are inherently curious about new technologies & services, or are we just being trend whores who want to be able to say “Oh yeah, I host my portfolio on the XXXX system” and hop from system to system — which kind of defeats the purpose of using them in the first place…