Stage I
Perhaps inspired by some of the latest photos from Mars, we wanted an inspiring photo of a spiral galaxy for this lovely quote by Louise Bogan. We found a great shot of our own Milky Way galaxy, and started messing about with type. This design approach could have worked fine—we could have called it a day and wandered off to play air hockey—but felt awfully tired of straight lines.

Stage II
In order to create more dimensionality, we changed the typeface and worked on distortion styles. We also flipped the photo so the composition would be more dynamic. But there are still too many strict edges for a quote about joy.

Final
We changed the typeface again (from Kino to Atomic Suck) to create more softness. We finessed the distortion of both quote and attribution, and added color blends to integrate the type with the imagery. Lastly, we masked out the pesky edges so that the image has a much more interesting shape. One gets the sense of looking into multiple layers of space, watching life unfold in multiple dimensions and directions—spinning in joy.