Design Work: Evel Knievel & Experimental Type

This was an advanced typography assignment from back in my college days for which the directive was fairly open ended: create a biography of a famous person and experiment with type.

Despite the fact that he frustratingly spells his faux first name without an i, I picked Evel Knievel, and decided to tell his life story through his delightfully colorful arrest record.

Here are some of my favorite spreads from the 36 page book that I wrote, designed, and hand-bound:

 The book cover was designed to look like a file folder; when you first open the "file," this first spread sets up the conceit:

For a time, Evel traveled the country robbing banks, serving as his gang's safe cracker. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to write on some actual crackers, which I then tossed on my scanner:

In 1953 he kidnapped his girlfriend; I wrote this one in the dirt {I think I remembered to scuff it out afterwords...}:

While he worked as an insurance salesman, he held his company's record for most policies sold in a week. He was forced to leave when it was discovered whom most of those policies were sold to {this creepy writing was actually achieved just with marker on a dirty tissue, enlarged a ton of times}:

At one point, he ran a hunting service, which unfortunately was actually poaching in Yellowstone National Park:

He managed to steal box office money from the 1960 Olympic Czechoslovakian hockey team and forced the Olympic committee to step in to "avoid an international incident":

And, after even more super fun criminal adventures, the book closed with this last collage: