Matt McCauley
Isthmus October 2023 cover
Matt McCauley was born and raised in Madison and Middleton. He drew inspiration for this month’s cover illustration from his childhood in the ‘80s. “The kitschy, cheap, plastic Halloween masks seemed like the perfect subject matter to represent my memories of the era,” he says. “They also offered up the opportunity to make a statement or two.”
His initial idea was to base all the masks on “monsters’ from the era — Ronald Reagan, Pete Rose — but after some back and forth with Isthmus art director Tommy Washbush, the focus turned to more current figures and topics.
The rest of the scene, he says, is built from his memories of what happened after trick or treating. For instance, when he and his friends would head “to one of our wood panel-clad basements to dump out our pillow cases full of candy to assess the damage. Inevitably, there would be some leaves that would make their way in the sacks or would be tracked in clinging to our costumes. And I had to throw in a couple razors to pay tribute to the urban legend (razors in the candy bars) that was so prevalent back then.”
Matt McCauley
October 2023 cover illustration drafts
Some drafts and alternate ideas for the October 2023 cover.
McCauley graduated from Madison College with a degree in graphic design and has worked as a professional designer for nearly 20 years. His concepting process usually starts out on paper with a series of very loose thumbnail sketches, before doing a quick onscreen sketch in either Illustrator or Photoshop to try to lock in proportion and placement. “I like to keep my illustrations a little more on the loose and expressive side while leaning into texture, transparency and layering,” he says. “I've cultivated a library of custom Photoshop brushes over the years and I draw directly on-screen with my WACOM Cintiq.”
See more of Matt’s work on Instagram.
