Little White Lies #84
Movie magazine Little White Lies is known for its illustrated front covers, originally a get-around for not being able to organise/afford photo shoots with film stars. The latest cover features Carey Mulligan in ‘Promising Young Woman,’ drawn by Laura Callaghan.
If recent Little White Lies covers have been rather subdued, this new one delivers a brighter hit with Callaghan’s acidic colour palette.
Known for her multi-character, detailed illustrations of real women, the cover is a slight departure for Callaghan, but a succesful one. Her vivid, loose, style – pen outline filled in with watercolour and gouache – works really well as a front cover, with full eye contact doing the job of a photo portrait.
‘I didn't actually get a chance to see the film,’ she told me, ‘the screening was in London and I just moved to Belfast back in November. Sometimes I miss living in the city where it all happens! But I watched the trailer a lot, it’s quite specific in tone so I got a sense of what the director was going for.’
The beauty of using illustration on a cover is the artist can draw from different sources to produce the final piece. ‘I was drawing Carey in a specific pose so I pulled from numerous shots of her in previous roles – anything I could find on google! – as well as photos of her character in ‘Promising Young Woman’ to get the hair and clothing right. The mirrored bar/nightclub scene behind the character is a reference to some of the scenes in the trailer.’
Callaghan also designed these cocktail-themed endpapers for the issue.
Editor: David Jenkins
Art director: Laurène Boglio