M. is a designer and illustrator from North Carolina, who specializes in book layouts, advertising, marketing, and video production.
Work with me: hello@mhalstead.com
Email Marketing
Animated Video Openers
The illustrations in the above animation sampler are stock images from various sources.
Video Editing
Slideshows in Motion
Web Design
In 2022, we decided to give our Santronics website a facelift. Prior to this, the website was a single page (with a busy background) and didn’t give in-depth information about our products. We wanted to move toward a more interactive, informative, and simple website.
Other Marketing Materials
Make it stand out
Howls From the Wreckage
Cover Design
Three talented artists provided artwork for book cover—and leadership was so impressed with them that we decided to move forward with one standard paperback edition, and two special editions. I managed the text design and layout of the standard paperback cover and the vintage paperback special edition cover, both of which came with their own challenges.
Vintage Paperback Special Edition Cover
We wanted to create a vintage-style mass-market paperback as one of our special editions, since the horror community has a strong affinity for these “paperbacks from Hell.” For the title, I used the classic font Benguiat, and adjusted the glyphs to make “Wreckage” appear more dramatic. From the beginning, we planned to include glossy overlays on this cover, visible in the mockup of the different editions. One of our greatest challenges with this cover is that it was originally designed for our 6x9” trim size, which meant that the illustration had to be adjusted to fit the smaller 4.25x7” size. I ended up having to move a few small details in the illustration to match the layout of the cover, like the robot on the spine and the tiny Sasquatch on the back cover mountains.
Cover illustration by Joe Radkins. To see more of his work or contact him about a commission, visit him on Instagram @thecinemaddiction or email him.
Standard Paperback Cover
The first challenge of the standard paperback cover was that we wanted the lettering to be fun to match the illustration style, but not so fun that readers forgot the genre was horror. The second challenge was fitting the text in with an isometric layout. For me, the solution to both challenges was to create 3D text in Illustrator. Although it took some experimentation, pictured here, and asking the illustrator to update the design to allow more space at the top of the image, we eventually struck the balance. Using 3D lettering allowed us to follow the lines of the isometric layout, have the text and the illustration interact with each other, and reflect the theme of the anthology in the lettering as the R and E fall into the abyss.
The cover illustration for the standard paperback was created by Maia Weir. If you’d like to commission Maia for a book cover, please submit a contact form and I’ll put you in touch, or check her out on Instagram @ratcatraven.
Advertising Campaign
For the first time in its history, HOWL Society decided to run a Kickstarter to raise funds for its annual anthology. This meant a pile of extra work for me—rather than a few individual ads to sprinkle around the internet, we needed additional merch and tons of mockups to show off our future products. The campaign was chosen as a Project We Love by Kickstarter and succeeded with 111% funding. This is a selection of the images featured on our campaign.
About the sticker designs:
The cricket and monster stickers were illustrated by Leah Gharbaharan, with some direction regarding the holographic effect on the cricket by myself. The bookmark was designed by me using Leah’s illustration for the hardcover edition. You can find Leah on Instagram and Twitter.
The circle sticker was designed by me using Joe Radkins’ illustration for the vintage paperback special edition. You can find Joe on Instagram.
Formatting
Formatting is both the least glamorous and most time-consuming aspect of my role in this anthology. From minute details like making sure a word doesn’t get hyphenated across pages to incorporating our found footage-style illustrations, I have touched every piece of this book time and time again. This project also came with the additional challenge of a second layout, since the standard edition is 6x9”, and the vintage paperback special edition is 4.25x7”.