Illustrator Patrick Sean Gibson took over the SF Bay Guardian cover this week, with fabulous results. I've never had an illustrator ask to hand-letter not only the main headline and subhead, but the masthead, issue info, and teaser heds as well. He wanted to make the whole cover consistent with the illustration, and I'm super into the effect.

For the 2014 edition of the annual Streets Issue, we wanted to convey the busy, lively, colorful feeling of traveling around SF streets without creating a too-busy Where's Waldo scene. Using a 1969 Time magazine cover by Milton Glaser as inspiration, we picked out a few common street scenes and iconic architecture, and Patrick swirled them together with '70s colors and a '70s typography treatment.

Maybe it's just because it hit stands today, I can't stop looking at it, and I've been getting tons of compliments ... but I'll go ahead and say this is one of my favorite Bay Guardian covers I've worked on.

Guardian illustration by Patrick Sean Gibson

Now that you've stared at it sufficiently (but feel free to go back and look again), check out the Streets Issue online.