"I sound my barbaric YAWP over the rooftops of the world." Sir Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

I've loved this line from the moment I read it, and the word "yawp" has become sort of a staple in my vocabulary since then. Examples of usage: a.) Snagged the last spicy hummus on the shelf at the corner grocer.. YAWP! b.) Client loved the first proof you sent out.. total yawp moment. It has a guttural combination of vowels/consonants that really lends itself well to screaming it out in exhaltation. It's a sound of release of energy that's clawing at your throat to come out. So naturally, I chose this quote.

Alright, let's get to the work. It's important to note that I don't normally sketch in a pretty sketchbook. It makes me too meticulous when I'm trying to get the ideas flowing. Plus, it doesn't allow me the absolute satisfaction of crumpling up a terrible sketch and throwing it as far away from me as possible. So I sketch on printer paper and tracing paper, and my sketches are all over the place. Sorry in advance for the lack of order.

IDEAS:

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 1 - student project

WARM UPS:

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 2 - student project

THUMBNAILS:

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 3 - student project

...going for a literal "over the rooftops" layout...

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 4 - student project

...playing around with "world"...

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 5 - student project

...first attempt at a gothic blackletter of "Barbaric Yawp"... I liked that it tied in the old feel of Walt's era, but it was wayyyy too tight. I needed to space it out to breathe more. Readability was lacking...

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 6 - student project

...Really liked this, but it didn't work as cohesively has I wanted it to. It looked like two separate pieces instead of one phrase. Put it away for a couple days then brought it back out, suffered from lack of inspiration, and scrapped the idea altogether. What happened next was a total yawp moment and I started sketching..

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 7 - student project

Really rough, still needed tweaking, but I was on the right track. I wanted to keep the blackletter, and have it coming out of the mouth like it was screaming out. "Yawp" wasn't working though, so I moved it to the tongue. I illustrated the tongue with a lot of cool looking tastebuds to differentiate it pretty drastically from "Barbaric" so they read separately, but still were the focus. After a couple rough sketches, here's my inked sketch:

INKED SKETCH:

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 8 - student project

Then I took it to the computer and put it in illustrator. Here's the final:

FINAL:

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 9 - student project

I could probably tweak it forever, but I'm stopping here. What do you guys think??

__________________________

UPDATED!!

After reading Mary Kate's comments, I agreed. The words were disjointed, and YAWP was reading as "VAWP". I fixed the "Y" issue which wasn't a big deal, but I couldn't find a great solution to bring the focus back on the quote. So, upon tweaking the last version (putting textures in, playing with colors etc..) I decided that I'd start over with a different direction. I took my blackletter from above and decided to use the details inside, and figured if both "Barbaric" and "Yawp" were illustrated the same, it would read as one unit. I inked a new piece, everything is new except for the blackletter which I used from my other sketch and put them together in illustrator. I reversed my inked version of the roofs to white, and blocked colors only on the roofs for emphasis. I decided to stay with a sketchy feel for the rooftops and a very clean look for "Barbaric Yawp" to separate the two.

Et Violaaa....

I Sound My Barbaric YAWP Over the Rooftops of the World - image 10 - student project

Any critiques? Thoughts?

Stevie Clark

illustrator, graphic designer

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