Covers

Santa’s sleigh, all hotrodded up. Not that it makes any sense (what exactly is the engine doing?) but it was a classic Duluth Trading cover in its day.

The model is a friend, Chris Godsey. The style is “technical” by which I mean it’s supposed to look like an architectural or engineering-type rendering.

If you live anywhere near Duluth, this is a very familiar sight for far too much of the year.

Another winter cover for the William’s Brewing catalog. Less typical for California and more typical for Minnesota: every boy and girl in this state is well acquainted with the techniques, dangers and joys of the snowball fight.

Clients sometimes don’t understand the point of a catalog cover: it’s just there to get attention. If, when sorting through the junk mail, one piece screams “LOOK AT ME!”, the cover’s done its job. But there’s usually a lot of pressure to show a product, thinking that will drive sales. But if customers don’t even open it?

This is the better kind of cover, in my humble opinion.

My friend and Pack Store employee Chris Gibbs posed for this in the alley between our buildings.

Most illustrators wouldn’t want to be known for their male underwear illustrations — I don’t — but this one was a blast. And it was fascinating to really study Michelangelo’s original.

Seems to me hops used to be imported (mostly from Germany), but even in rural Wisconsin one sees hops trellises poking the skyline.

This is happening somewhere far from the midwest. At least not in Minnesota; we wouldn’t stand this close together.

We had always done olive drab covers. I’d designed a Duluth Trading cover with a black background and the clients were jealous.

I thought this book would be boring to look at (mushroom equals putty-colored equals boring) but good Lord, they come in colors! Take these Chrome Foot mushrooms on the cover for example.

The client wanted the icing on the rails and guys. I grumbled inside my head but it made the cover better. This image found a second home in the Duluth, Minnesota Duluth Trading Store, blown up to around 10 feet wide.

Summer 2015 Frost River catalog cover.

My friend Erik Nelson first posed for this back in 2003; this is a contemporary remake. That’s his wife Cindy being repelled and horrified by his copious exposure. Let me just say, I’ve know Erik a very long time, and I’ve NEVER seen him display the nether parts of his backside.

A got a few comments on this one from Duluth Trading Customers. There is something adorable in the floppy features of a dog shaking off. The thousands of blobs of water droplets were the challenge.

The perfect Duluth Trading cover. A 12-foot long version of this also graces the wall of their Bloomington, Minnesota retail store.

This is the January, 2017 Duluth Trading Company cover: the U.S.C.G. Icebreaker Mackinaw hard at work cutting ice in the Duluth Harbor. The Mackinaw is now a floating museum ship in Mackinaw City, Michigan, but I watched her perform exactly this duty many times as a kid growing up in Duluth (read more about the Mackinaw).

In case it’s not completely obvious they’re all wearing Duluth Trading Co. Products.

This slender booklet describes (and shows) in great detail the route secrets of one of the world’s most notorious mountain climbs: the North Face of the Eiger. Visit eigertopo.com for more information.

Based on the famous gambling dogs paintings done by C.M. Coolidge. There are several of these paintings: this is based on A Bold Bluff, 1909, which was followed by another painting, the next scene in this story, called Waterloo. I threw in Scout, the Duluth Trading Co. mascot, and put the focus on him and his hand instead of the St. Bernard’s (who wins his bluff and the huge pot in Waterloo).

You may notice a trend: covers representing historical figures, typically wearing or using an anachronistic Duluth product. The weird object in the lower left is a glass Lyden jar, used to store static electricity (the 18th Century’s version of a capacitor).

Even Santa has to work off the Christmas food binge.

A very old DTC cover, this was Bob Fierek’s idea, and his can full of small parts that we poured out over my desk.

The two fellows posed for this in my office.

Our First book was about rock-picking: “A Rock-Picker’s Guide To Lake Superiors’s North Shore” which has so far sold around 70,000 copies. We thought this might make a nice addition because agates are the main draw for the North Shore rock pickers.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, though once I did nearly all of the Duluth Trading illustration, now I’m just one among several equals. In those glory days I illustrated nearly 30 Santa covers plus a bunch of editorial Santas used on the interior pages. For several years I was probably  the preeminent Santa Claus illustrator in the United States. But then how many people actually draw Santas?

Laurel and Hardy (Google it) except under a sink and wearing jeans.

My hands-down favorite, mostly because tobogganing is so much fun (we know about this in northern Minnesota), and because of the middle bear’s expression.

A company started by the former managers of Duluth Pack. I built a fire and posed (“poised”?) this pot over it in my back yard.

Duluth Trading Co. “Ape for DTPro”:

When people want to show that a product is really tough, they give it to a gorilla. But gorillas are really pretty gentle so this whole notion is unfair to those maligned primates.

Winter catalog cover done ten years ago for the creator and first owner of Frost River, Steve Emerson.

Bears flying: silk scarves and goggles but no leather helmets (because they already have really hard heads, of course).

Not OSHA approved.

Based on the Lewis Hine photograph.

I’m of a generation raised on portrayals of World War II, and the only thing better than painting this Sherman tank would’ve been painting a German Panzerkampfwagen V Panther or the Pzkpfw VIB Tiger I. And if you understand these references, you’re a bit pathetic.

Back in the old days when Fiskars owned Duluth Trading, they wanted a photography-driven, rebranded catalog featuring many of the same products offered in the DTC catalog. This was the first cover.

Santa without his beard is almost as silly as the notion of Santa himself.

Another friend, Dan Markham, was foolish enough to pose for this. No, he’s not a boxer though he sometimes dresses like one.

This is not quite the cover that was mailed: that one had the ropes and the cheering crowd in the backgound. Too busy. This is the version I wanted the client to use.

My indefatigable friend Erik posed once again for this knockoff of the Norman Rockwell riveter.

This was the first book my field guide publishing business with Mark “Sparky” Stensaas published, and the most successful: we’ve sold well over 80,000 of these. Not bad for a very specialized guide to an obscure area and interest.

The cognoscenti might recognize Yosemite Valley in the distant background: Bridleveil Falls, Sentinal Rock and Halfdome. You’d think it might be tricky to find a harness that fits a bear…

Based on a Reubens painting this time. Note the subtle snake in the tree and the rabbit by their feet and the grape vine: all the good stuff is there: sin, sex, wine and underwear.

I painted and designed this for my very good friend and climbing partner Dave Pagel. He wrote for climbing magazines for years and this is a collection of all his stories and articles.

An ode to the complexities of brewing. Not really all that different from what this fellow Is doing.

To me, all bears look like they’re guys, so the cover bears tend to find themselves in stereotypically male roles such as this one: the venerable ritual of gathering around an open hood, pointing and pontificating about functions likely unknown or at least misunderstood.

This is based on a real guy, Tony Thompson, an industrial diver, who works out of Massachusetts and really does this kind of work, and worse.

This cover was especially fun: all the climbing clothing and paraphernalia, the setting (summit of Mount Everest) and the lighting. That thing sticking in the snow isn’t an oxygen bottle, it’s a growler. And these characters don’t pack light; note the beer glasses…