MY LIFE IS RICH

Turdus Migratorius

I did this for my mom. Love you mom!

TK & VH Tour Poster

(click to zoom in)

I now have done 3 posters for co-headlining tours. It's an interesting musical approach as well as another solution to work around in the design approach. The interesting fact about this tour is that each group will back the other when they play, so that's gonna be a d'lish treat to see.

I wanted to keep equal importance as always to the co headliners and at the same time pull em apart, 2 eyes being from the same head accomplished this for me. I then used these 2 black & white fotos i had found at an antique store that i've been waiting to use and this seemed the best way. Valhalla Hill are a couple members so it was perfect for the army buddies snap and Tony Kevin Jr. being solo i jus had to use the old school lumber jack. I kept the colors to an antique almost sun distorted hue and then overlapped them to bring another dimension to pull it off the page. I then stressed some of the lines and shapes to contribute to the antique feel that was coming from the color/type/fotos.

Please listen to Tony Kevin Jr. & Valhalla Hill ! A treat for the ears and soul!

PAUL SIMON

I can't stop listening to this record. Vanja has vinyls i don't really listen to and i'm jus discovering how amazing they are. The sound textures are terrific on this collection • incredible diversity in genre hopping • a terrific lyricist • catchy melodies around unique song structuring. I'm a huge fan and I would venture to say that Vampire Weekend have to be as well. IF you can pick this up or find it you won't be disappointed! ALSO i really like that it fits various parts of my day. It's nice to work to, nice for background hanging out, nice to just sit and listen too. ENJOY!

SOMETIMES I DRAW

Drinking Jar

I enjoy drinking out of old glass mason jars. Reminds me of Michigan & country livin'. I jus found some over at Espresso Parts for $2.97 each! Jus think of the drinks that come from the spring into summer transitions -> home made lemonade with frozen raspberries, peach ice tea, iced americanos, chocolate soy/milk. Drinking out of glass is the best, ESPECIALLY when it has a fine fashioned glass handle to hold onto.

PAPER ASTRONOMER

I'm so delighted to share this album cover finally. This is the biggest project i have done yet and i had the most incredible insight & assistance from VANJA. and Casey. It required the most vision i've put into a project which also meant the most time i've put into a project as well!

I'm going to do a detailed blog in the next couple weeks really picking apart the making of this record cover. There's a lot of photos we took while making it to add to it. BUT for now here is the cover and back.

GET to know some of my fav pals and their tunes HERE

TOM ROREM

I had the pleasure of meeting Tom Rorem a year ago. I discovered a thinker, a musician, and a friend. He has the reward of graduating from a fine Chicago school and is finishing it with a final show with a full band. Proud of you Tom!

The first thing that came to mind for this poster was actually color. I never think of color schemes first so this was something I was excited to see where it would take me. I wanted it to be old school western meets old adventure book covers with thick type. I tried to think of imagery of being done, being free, moving on. I kept coming back to wild horses on the Midwest plains with so much room to roam. This is the most grainy masking i've done on a poster and something i don't want to do often but the element was perfect for this.

If you are in Chi-town hit this up!

NO THEFT x AMPERSAND

There has been incredible attention given to this swirly character in the past year, blogs, shirts, fonts, tattoos even have been saturated with them. I enjoy them a lot as well, SO I decided to make one and give it to my pal Anna who is a fan as well.

MICHAEL PORTER

A few weeks back my dear friend/brother asked me to put together a business card for him for his photography. I worked on it from the road and a couple days back this developed into a logo that I'm really proud of. I wanted to keep it very simple, something that could be versatile for diff. mediums and something that would have equal emphasis of imagery & type. I brought in the aperture shapes and it made itself! MP liked it and we sent em off to be printed. I haven't done much logo work and with this under my belt I'm excited to work on future logo projects.

Please check out Michael's site for some great work!

Chemistry In Print

Saw this today, beakers are in!

Background

My mum has been telling me to try using more colors for back grounds than the typical. I came across these today and thought of her. I love the gem/film logo and the unique type placements on the mustard color poster. Here's to more color in future works.

INVISIBLE CREATURE

I usually don't double post, but I had to share on my page as well. I just finished designing Paper Astronomer's new EP cover with the help of Shoot take it & Casey (singer of PA) and will be working on another cover soon! I have limited experience with cover work helping with the art direction on 2 GV albums and 1 GV record on my own. I'm excited to work more on music covers in the future and the Invisible Creature kids are a huge current inspiration that is fueling my growing intrigue with cover work. Anyone need an album cover done or know someone who needs one done? holla! ANYWAY back to the re-post

"I’m always researching/gathering for inspirations. Lately I’ve been gathering more mixed media works, from textures, illustrated/photo combos, 3-d pieces. I don’t really use those theories in my work but when I see it done well I’m deff. engaged. I’ve been staring at these 3 record covers for the past while and today discoverd that they collectively are done by the same design firm! After looking at their blog I found more pieces of their work that I’ve previously put in my design likings. I wonder if they want another designer for their firm…winky wink ALSO these kids are Seatown LOCAL, gotta love the two-o-six scene!"

SEE more IC work HERE

NEW NOISE

Mdot got me connected to Nassir a week ago. He runs a weekly joint called New Noise that brings in unsigned acts to get em exposure and to draw talent out of the community. We had a very short window to get this poster done & up for promotions. It was a challenge for me to research, develop the thought, and deliver in a day and a half for a brand new client. The amount of information that needed to be on this was a bit challenging as well, it's more than a line up show.

I had 2 things to base my work on 1) a past New Noise poster 2) the season of spring. I thought of leaves budding and chemistry as a symbol for developing something 'new'. I went more busy/illustrated than I normally do, littered the beaker with leaves and used diff. versions of them for the fire that is brewing the new concoction. I continued the natural theme into the tongs being a twig and then 2 toned the liquid for slight depth.

I learned a lot from this project. The hustle made me realize how to better understand my client before producing a product, to have more time between start & deadline for more revisions, and to run with several themes at one time more consistently.

Nassir is doing great things with Found Track and his contribution to the music scene is going to grow and grow and grow. I'm stoked about it!