Jeff Kern design for "The Big Lebowski"

The Big Lebowski

In one of the most quoted movies of all time, The Dude lifts a pencil doodle from Jackie Treehorn by way of frottage. As luck would have it this lended itself to looking stylistically different than anything else in the book. Blend the literal idea of that situation with some conceptual imagery and movie-poster-format conventions and it’s visualized, man. I usually avoid literal situations, but in this case it felt important that the pencil sketch is made by a non-visual artist—which means that the aesthetics of the illustration aren’t great. Making it more literal emphasizes the situation rather than the illustration. Deep, man.