Project: Emily Greene

Sometimes a project comes along out of the blue and I can't resist taking it on. Around a month ago, I received an email from a young musician named Emily Greene who began her letter with "Dan Romer suggested that I contact you". This is always a good start for me. Dan Romer is Jenny Owen Youngs' producer and a very talented musician himself. He mixed and mastered Emily's record and when he finished the project he asked Emily when the record would be released. She said she didn't know and wasn't sure how to proceed. This is when my name came up as Dan thought I might be able to help with the packaging and offer some advice. The other really great thing that Emily did was to attach two songs. I like courageous artists who cough up the music right away with no apologies or excuses. I liked the songs a lot and told her to send me the whole record.
Emily Greene is an interesting project for me as she has a major label voice and style. I knew that we had neither the resources nor the stomach for a major label style photoshoot. And it was important that the imaging somehow telegraphed that the artist was serious and her style eclectic. I ended up being inspired by victorian graphics and printing posters. They were ornate, complex and feminine which were good adjectives for the music. It seemed like a good fit and I'm happy with the results.
Finally, I am always trying to get artists out of the grip of Discmakers. I know you can't beat their prices but they've screwed up every job I've ever sent them and I'm not a fan of their cookie cutter/column A/column B approach to packaging. And the few things a young artist has is time, inclination and an army of friends to do some hand assembly. So I convinced Emily to use the fine folks at Stumptown Printers and make a letterpressed Arigato Pak. We'll xerox the lyric sheet and fold it into the package along with the CD disc. She can sell them at shows and send them to the appropriate people and it will stand out from the pack.

A New Project: Mary Gauthier/The Foundling

I listen to a lot of music every day. In rare instances I get to design packaging for an artist whose music inspires me, like Aimee Mann, Jenny Owen Youngs and Jim White. I recently sought out a project that I am very psyched about. Mary Gauthier (say "Go-Shay" y'all) is an artist that I have listened to and admired for a long time. Through colleagues and acquaintances, I got to Mary's manager and requested putting my hat in the ring to design Mary's next recording package. I got the gig and was sent the demos for The Foundling. The songs were powerful, it was a concept album with a narrative arc. An art director can't ask for much more.
Last year, Jenny Owen Youngs introduced me to a graphic novel called "The Lagoon" by Lilli Carré. I loved the book. The illustrations were dark, lonesome and spare. These were the images that came into my mind when I first heard "The Foundling" demos. I reached out to Lilli who was intrigued enough to participate in the project despite a very modest budget. God bless her. This is one of Lilli's illustrations for a song on the record called "Walk On Water".

Blogging Requires Dedication

At first I thought a design blog would be a good idea and then life and work get in the way. For the past two months, I've been working with one of my favorite designers, Ed Sherman, on the Lynyrd Skynyrd packaging. Usually, a release comes on the schedule and I assign an appropriate art director and manage the process. But I just couldn't let go of Lynyrd Skynyrd... they are, after all, the American South's greatest rock band and I loved their music when I was a kid.
The packages (there are two versions, a standard and a deluxe) just went into production and I finally feel like I can breathe a little easier.
I wanted to give the band a cover that I felt they deserved. Something strong and classic. I knew that I wanted to keep the basic letterforms of their logo but once I received the logo from management, I knew it would need to be redrawn. Which is where the mighty skills of Ed Sherman come in. He has the most masterful grasp of Adobe Illustrator and it shows in this cover. You see it here as a jpeg but Ed created a vector file that is so complex that it crashed our prepress vendor's output device more than once. I'm waiting to see their revised output tomorrow. Wish me luck.

A Rant

I heard a singer songwriter on NPR name Sarah Jarosz. I went to iTunes and downloaded the music for $7.99 thinking "this is so great, instant gratification!" Sarah is a multi-instrumentalist and wrote all but two of the songs (there is a beautiful beautiful cover of The Decemberist's "Shankhill Butchers") which I gleaned from the blurb on iTunes. All of a sudden, my instant gratification is turning to frustration: What instruments does the multi-instrumentalist play? The iTunes blurb mentions the mandolin. But is she playing the banjo or fiddle or guitar as well? There's another cover song  called "Come On Up To The House" but I can't remember who wrote it. Is she singing harmony or is it someone else?

WHERE IS MY DIGITAL BOOKLET iTUNES???!!!!!

It totally bugs me. It has completely changed my listening experience. Not only do I miss the artwork in my hands but I have to go on an internet expedition to often find that the artists websites have not posted the album credits on their site.

I think iTunes should offer equality for all and let EVERY artist have a digital booklet if they are willing to create one for their dumb, proportionally unfriendly format. 

Ways of Seeing

When I was studying design, required reading was John Berger's Ways of Seeing. 

It made me think about our visual culture. When I am thinking of creative direction for a CD package, I always try and present two distinct ideas with very different visual references. 

This is something that I, as a commercial artist feel required to do; present options.

This is the reason I love to look at art that has no client. Art that comes purely from the mind and soul. These images are some of my most favorite images of water which is my most favorite element to gaze upon.  Hiroshi Sugimoto's pristine and serene photographs of glassy water and endless horizon lit by the sun at various times of the day and Roni Horn's turbulent photographs of the sea, all murky and undulating and turbulent.

Respect the Source Material

Here's where I feel particularly lucky and grateful as a designer. To have music as my source material.

It is important to take this content, the source material, seriously. In a perfect world, I receive rough mixes or if I am really fortunate, MP3s of the demos which, in the case of a singer songwriter, is mostly just vocals and guitar. The demos are the songs at their purest, before the producer sprinkles fairy dust over them and they become fleshed out and big. I like to sit with the songs for a few days while ideas start forming. If the material is inspiring, I can usually see pictures in my head right away. It's the time where I start sketching, doodling, poring over lyrics to pick out the vivid images and key phrases. I start to look for supplemental material, from 19th century schoolbook primers to modern comics/graphic novels for inspiration. This is a rewarding phase in the design process. Your mind is open to infinite possibilities.

On Being Interested

My design process begins with my immersion in culture and media. I read books and magazines, see movies, look at fashion on the street, check out design blogs and go to museums and art galleries. This is how I develop a visual vocabulary. 

It is fascinating to see what has come before and what is going on now. This week, I am currently reading One! Hundred! Demons! by Lynda Barry,  went to the Francis Bacon show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, saw PJ Harvey at the Beacon Theater, pored over the ephemera art section at the Strand Bookstore and checked out some gallery shows in Chelsea. I look for inspiration (and take my point and shoot camera) everywhere.

I Miss Polaroids: The Notebook Project

Margaret Kilgallen, a wonderful illustrator who exited earth way too soon, said this: "From a distance it might look straight, but when you get close up, you can always see the line waver. And I think that's where the beauty is." This is what I love about polaroids. Their imperfection. The beautiful dreamy accidents that happen before all the kinks are worked out. I miss polaroids.

I created a flickr page of quick scans of my notebooks over the years. At each shoot I would grab a polaroid, paste it into my notebook and write some details. I miss those moments. I also kept the best polaroids intact. One day, I'll scan those and post them. But for now, you can have a look at The Notebook Project. 

A Caveat

I was recently interviewed by Martin Colyer for Varoom Magazine who is doing a story on Aimee Mann's last three CD packages. I told him that I didn't think I would be well suited to design anything else besides music; that the strict discipline of design didn't hold the key to my passion. It's the music that inspires me. That being said, design purists should probably roam elsewhere (I am particularly fond of Design Observer).

Designing for Music

I have been designing for music for almost twenty years. There is a complex skill set that music packaging designers put into use when designing CD packages. Depending on the musician, the record label (if they have one at all) and the artist's management, you rely not only your design skills but your psychology skills are constantly on red alert, you often need nerves of steel and you always have to have a thick skin.

Unlike so many other design disciplines, in music you have a product that has an opinion and talks back. Some musicians enjoy the artwork process; others not so much. In all my projects, I have tried to communicate visually what the viewer will soon be experiencing aurally.

And I will always believe, since the moment I laid my eyes on the cover of the Beatles "Revolver" LP Jacket as a four year old child, that when the visuals are conceptually sound and well executed, it is an "experience" that goes with the music.

This is my blog about my design process.