Over at On Five, the Criterion Company blog, designer Eric Skillman tells — and shows — us how he got to the DVD design for the Criterion release of Jules Dassein’s Night and the City.

Here’s the intro. Click on the link for further commentary and all the mock-ups that lead to the final design, seen here.

When I was designing the cover for Night and the City, I wanted to find a slightly different idiom to represent “noir,” to get away from the pulpy, dime-novel look that’s normally associated with that era and style. (Something I think illustrator Geoff Grandfield achieved brilliantly with his recent cover for Green for Danger, by the way.) I love that pulpy style on Raymond Chandler novels, but to me, most old film noir posters in that style pale in comparison to how artfully the films themselves are shot.