08 March 2010
70 Million by Hold Your Horses ! from L’Ogre on Vimeo.
This is a really fun video with an impressive mass of fun allusions to famous pieces in art history. Sadly enough, I can hardly remember what the song is like because I was so taken by the visuals.
24 February 2010
confession:
I’d say a good 5 years ago my good friend Bardhi Haliti tried to get me into Joanna Newsom. She’s this crazy woodland sprite with a squeaky soprano (I tried to find what was higher than soprano, but couldn’t get a clear answer from Google and Wikipedia) that plays the harp. The harp! It wasn’t hard to see her indie cred, but I had a hard time actually getting into her music.
And then in 2006 she released “Ys” and I kinda thought: that’s a little pretentious… an album name that’s not even a word… but all I did, I’m sure, was display my own ignorance. The album was critically acclaimed as one of the best of the year. I didn’t give it much of a chance.
And then, on a total whim, I go to npr.org today—not to listen or read any stories, but just to look at their playlist functionality for site that I’m working on. I’m haphazardly clicking on any story that has a [+] icon next to it, and I happened to add two stories about Joanna Newsom to my playlist. And, for once—even though my original intention did not include actually listening to anything—I gave her a shot.
And, sadly and predictably enough, she blew me away.
(also surprising to me, because I thought she was creature from the middle ages, she happens to be quite beautiful… definitely giving indie-darlings, Jenny Lewis and Zoe Deschanel, a run for their money)
Anyways, she released a new album, “Have One on Me” on Tuesday and it’s really good. Granted, it is much more accessible than her previous two, but in just one listen today (it’s 2+ hours long) I was blown away. Check it out on NPR—they’re streaming it for free right now.
15 September 2009
Earlier this year, the super-talented Joshua James called me up asking for some help designing the booklet for his upcoming album, Build Me This. The booklet was based on an old publication from the late 1800s and would be very typographic-driven. Right up my alley, right? So I gladly accepted. Naturally the project soon ballooned and we ended up (re)doing all the packaging, labels, and the booklet.
The photos below are not incredible because I didn’t have appropriate lighting in my house tonight. And the upload warped the colors all weird, but you should be able to get the gist.
We designed the digipack and insert book, CD face, vinyl sleeve, and vinyl face labels. I do say “we” because I want to recognize Joshua’s continual help and direction—as well as his second set of eyes at 4 in the morning before sending off to press. Also, credit to Weston Colton for the photography—much more impressive in real life/real color. Hopefully I can get some pictures soon that do the piece more justice. In the meantime, check out the music (iTunes link again…) because it really is something special. Write home about it, even. I know I did.
02 August 2009
A while back, I designed a little promo/demo piece for/with my good friend, Micah. It’s super weird and creepy and awkward, but there’s something about it that I really quite like—even if I’m the only one. Micah stained the wood and mounted the prints on there. And there’s a CD clip/nipple (i don’t know what they’re called?!) on the back to put the demo disk on. I think it’s a pretty unique demo.
And, speaking of demo, if you are ever looking for someone to score a movie, commercial, motion piece, or otherwise for you… check him out. Even if he wasn’t a best friend and a band-mate for nigh unto a decade, I would (and do) use this guy for all my musical needs. Check this piece out that he did for Jon’s Film is Not Dead workshop… Super8 footage by Leo; Edited and designed, actually, by Micah, as well. (Also, some closer shots of the demo after the jump.) (Also also, isn’t is strangely convenient that those last three links all happen to be stuff that I designed as well… unintentional, believe it or not) (Also^3, that’s my beautiful, giggling, cake-top bride—suzie—in the adidas slip-on’s.)
23 June 2009
Wired Magazine posted this a while ago—I just saw it today via Josh Spear. Sometime’s Girl Talk is a bit overwhelming to listen to if set as background musci, but I think he is an incredible artist. To thread so many elements together so seamlessly is both impressive and, I think, a culminating statement speaking to the appropriation/sample movement in art and music. His music is like speeding through the last 5 decades of pop music in lightspeed. Have a listen below and follow along with the chart above—it’s pretty fun and totally mind-blowing.
31 May 2009
The company I work at was a key sponsor of Saturday’s “Glenn Beck at the Capitol” fund raising gala in SLC. Thursday night, my boss called to tell me that they (the coordinators) granted us permission to play a quick little video at the event—something none of the other sponsors received, so it was a pretty big deal. Problem was: we had no such video to show.
So Friday morning at 7:30, my boss, Dave, Joe (from Children Kids), and myself met up and ran over ground rules and a few basic concepts. By about 8:30, we knew we needed our stand-by musician extraordinaire, Micah (of Typophile and Children Kids fame… to name but a few) in order to pull anything even remotely ok off. He was there within the hour and we got down to business. With some help from Ashley Mackay (also of Typophile fame) and a few rolls of sushi from Demae here in Provo, we completed the piece from conception to final render in one day—done by 2:30 am.
Now, I know it’s not the world’s most perfect piece, but I think there’s some good foundational work in there. And, honestly, I’m pretty impressed with us for getting it done—period. Especially since I haven’t used After Effects since said Typophile fame…
09 January 2009
With accessibility of inexpensive/digital recording equipment and home (or even laptop) studios, the rise of iTunes and the fall of major labels, indie bands have saturated the market in the past few years. I think, like in the design world, there are those bands who fight to keep atop the latest trend and may have a several thousand hits of their myspace page (or blog) for a few weeks, but die out quickly because they lack real substance. And then there are some real gems that cause me to praise the restructuring of the music business. Andrew Bird, for me, is one of those artists. He’s “Indie” in the sense that he’s on an indie label—Fat Possum—he records from a barn filled with egg-laying chickens in Illinois, and is generally difficult to classify into a specific genre, but I don’t think he’s the typical, trendy 2008–2009 indie group: there are no neon colors on his albums, few digital dance beats, and, although his jeans appear to be fairly fitted, I don’t know that I would go so far as to call them “skinny jeans.”
At any rate, he’s got an new album coming out in a couple weeks that NPR is previewing right now that is really, really good. I listened to it about three straight times yesterday and know that I’ve barely scratched the surface. Andrew Bird is a true musician and a gifted song-writer. He may not always be on top of my play list, but for the past 3 years or so—starting with a album redesign I did in school—he has been constantly in my play list.
Here’s a shot of the album cover (and inside flap):
This was for a letterpress class and I had a lot of fun doing it. I played a lot with heavy collage (obviously), altered appropriation, and various kinds of half-tone patterns. It may be a little intense and unfocused, but there’s still some things I quite like about it. Everything in the design does have specific relavance to the lyrics of the album, The Mysterious Production of Eggs, and I feel the general tone and method of design and production fits the album—which, by the way, I listened to multiple times a day during the whole course of the project and never grew tired of… great album.
top photo by Cameron Wittig.