Top Lists

The publication can be likened to TIME Magazine but for the construction industry, with these three special issues listing all the major players in Design Firms,  Contractors and Specialty Contractors. Commissioned by Senior Art Director Scott Hilling, Gail was asked to use the actual pages of the lists to create the covers, she explains, "I decided to make the number the hero of each cover and give each its own distinct treatment and pattern behind. The first was Top 500 Design Firms, which has a creative and 'designer' feel, with quilled numbers and a more free 3d patterning from the lists. The next was Top 400 Contractors, where I focussed more on structure and introduced a grid background grid with discrete references to buildings by hinting at windows. The type sits on the diagonal step device, using a metallic paper for the 3D numbers, adding rivets and a cut texture details to really make it feel constructed. The final cover, Top 600 Speciality Contractors, reserves the 3D element for the type made up of a series of rectangular paper 'rods' laid on a grid to form the numbers and photographed from above to suggest an aerial view of skyscrapers. The cut and layered background grid pattern is based on the facades of 2 particular buildings combined."