I recently finished up this shirt design for a record label out of Michigan called The Great Lakes Collective. I have to say, sometimes I really enjoy the challenge of working for a client and solving the problem of creating what they’re imagining. In this case, a wise blue owl nestled in a tree shaped like Michigan.
We recently had the distinct pleasure of being asked to act in an advisory role by the talented Lea Vervoort, an illustrator, designer, and student at the Academy of Art and Design St. Joost, in the South of the Netherlands. For one of her classes, Lea was required to re-design the packaging for a favorite album of hers. Apparently, Lea’s not afraid of facing down challenges – she chose to re-design Takk by Sigur Ros (also a favorite band of ours), an album whose layout is already considered by many to be a fine example of beauty in packaging.
Encouraging Lea in her creative process was a blast for us – she genuinely took our suggestions and made them entirely her own, creating packaging that we would have been proud to feature in our own portfolios. Great work, Lea! Needless to say, we’re hoping that her instructors give her high marks – she deserves it!
We’d never previously had the pleasure of working with a ‘modern American string band’, and so had few preconceptions going into things when Emma Beaton of Boston-based Joy Kills Sorrow contacted us about creating the artwork and design for their new album, This Unknown Science. After listening to the record, it became readily apparent to us that the band seamlessly and with great ease fuses elements of bluegrass, rock, pop, and jazz into their own distinct contribution to a thriving international folk scene, creating an album that is a joy to listen to. In addition, the five members of Joy Kills Sorrow came to the table highly prepared with a definitive aesthetic vision for the artwork that should accompany the songs they’d worked so hard on, something that we always find refreshing in our line of work. It was decided that the imagery of the album should pay homage to the ancient, strange, and decidedly esoteric roots of modern science, leading to the inclusion of everything from illustrated archaic microscopes to hand-drawn astrolabes (oddly beautiful instruments used by seafarers in older times).
Thanks again to Emma and the rest of our new friends in Boston for the opportunity to work with them on this release! Be sure to check it out!
Without hesitation, we can safely say that when it comes to genuine, kind, and musically uber-talented dudes, Canton, Ohio seems to have them in spades. The guys who make up Shaw’s Landing are part of that burgeoning and highly-promising music scene, and can often be found stirring things up with the scruffy troublemakers in Come Wind and A Minor Bird. We’re ardent fans of the whole crew, and had a blast working on the visual aspects of their new release, ‘I Stand In the Balance’. This is a record ripe with meaning and Mystery, a moving dynamic that we sought to compliment with the album illustration and design.
