Good morning, Roca Nation!
Yesterday, we released Issue 2 of Volume 1 of the Roca Mag. With one issue already under our belt, the process became much more efficient: We didn’t have to work through the night Friday into Saturday to tie up loose ends this time, which was nice.
Anyway, getting into it – this week’s cover was based on Max Towey’s lead story Inside America’s Robot Factories. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend you do (here’s the link). Robots are coming quickly but flying under the radar with all eyes on AI.
When it came to designing a cover, my mind immediately went to two places.
The first was that we should leverage the interesting footage and pictures from our trip to these factories, and use a fullscreen shot as the cover. I tried a few, and the final iteration looked like this:
I actually liked it quite a bit because it tells a story: It first looks like a bland office. Then you see the American flag, the computers, and the bros – essentially the story of the multi-million- (sometimes multi-billion-) dollar startups in the “Gundo” that are trying to revolutionize American manufacturing.
But I didn’t find it particularly eye-catching, and I wanted people to actually read this, so I kept experimenting.
The next concept I explored was “assembling the assembly line.” These robot-makers were creating robots that would take over manufacturing – they were manufacturing the manufacturer. I made several covers with this core idea, each with a different angle, such as competing with China or robots taking American factory workers’ jobs. I tried both real-life image mashups and cartoon-comics. Here are some of the (unfinished) drafts:
Out of these, I liked the last one the best…
But it felt sterile.
I wanted to better embody the new-age robot tech bro. Max Towey described them to me as eclectic, young, male, nerdy, bro-y, and generally right-leaning. The mishmash directed my mind to one place: Video games.
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A nerdy pastime if there ever was one, I couldn’t picture most of the guys in these robot factories not going home and turning on a PlayStation within five minutes. I’d know, given I do that myself.
So, I tried to turn the image into a video game cover:
There were about 10 more drafts between that and the final, so I’ll spare you all the tweaks. I changed the colors, added depth, and brought in some new details:
Ta-da! Here, we have a video game-esque cover featuring an LA tech bro (in a Dodgers hat) assembling a robot assembly line. American factory workers watch on with displeasure – these robots don’t have families to feed – while an army of Chinese factory workers battles them from the other side. The American robots have already churned out stacks of completed packages, outpacing the Chinese human workers on the right.
If you haven’t read it yet, check out the cover story here.
And don’t miss the magazine’s other stories:
I hope you enjoyed some insight into the cover process. I’ll see you next weekend.
—Billy
love the cover breakdowns! hope they continue every week
Toon on, gentlemen👍💪💯‼️