Bosse-de-Nage "Backwards Man" shirts available

Hey neat! Bosse-de-Nage made my Backwards Man flyer design into a shirt!
Go shopping for yours on the Flenser site, or come get one at a show.

Here's the original flyer, and the post where I talk about how I made the design and text. The image is one that I photographed from a rare book, and was used with permission.

Digital after-life - the creation and re-creation of the album art for Bosse-de-Nage's III

Part of being a creator-of-things is the ability to let a piece of yourself go. Once you make something, it's sent off into the great wide world, largely outside of your control, to take on new life in the digital realm.

Sometimes I can't help but be amused at the veritable rainbow that's become of the original art for Bosse-de-Nage's album, III. Online, anyway.

I think back to the many discussions on color, visual meaning, and philosophy that the band and I had as we put the finishing touches on the work -- a journey feeling every bit as complex and transformative as the creation of a musical piece.

Indeed, the final version is quite different from the original, which I still have stored at home. I started out with pencil and watercolor, but allowed it to take on shapes of it's own, not wanting my hand to have complete control over what I hoped would be fitting such a surreal, dark, and sometimes chaotic and conceptually abstract sound. As it progressed, those were just the types of amorphous shapes that started to occur. The band found lots of hidden shapes in the work that I hadn't noticed, too; like "the angel Gabriel," and a "goat face" (which I now can't un-see.) Staring for hours at the later digitized high-resolution version of the original, zooming in and out, adjusting colors and tones (all the while with iii blasting in my headphones) -- the pleasantly maddening experience took me into the depths of the music in a way that I couldn't fully have anticipated, and I hope that it is reflected in the work.

The CD art is a smaller, cropped version of the vinyl album art, something I talked about at length with their band's singer. We wanted the two images to be different, but like windows into the same concept, viewed from different vantage points. Much like music, art can feel so vastly different depending on your mood, your locale, or even the media-form you choose.

Being able to enter into the music so intensely, and trying to extract themes and essences in a visual manner, feels both intimate and strangely voyeuristic. It was a privilege to have been able to work with such a moving album, and such a unique band.

Custom guestbook for Doris and Jonathan

This weekend, Doris and Jonathan will say their wedding vows! I hope that this custom guestbook gets filled up with messages of joy and love, and brings them much happiness for years to come.

Having recently designed their save the dates, I brought back the botanical theme with handmade paper with embedded petals (that I've been saving for the right project for years!), silk flowers, gilt silkscreened patterned endsheets, and ribbons and bookcloth in hues of aubergine and sage. Using an extra copy of their invitation, I created an inlaid name placard, to carry over the design and make it more unique to them.

Here are some shots of the planning stages, as I played with ideas: 

It's always a lot of fun to try to create something meaningful for a wedding, based on cues from both the event ephemera and the people about to get hitched. Congratulations, guys -- it has been an honor to help make your day more special!

See more custom books on my website.

Wedding logo design for Linda and Derek - the lamb and the turtle

Preview of a wedding logo design that I made for Linda and Derek. Linda identifies with a lamb, and Derek with a turtle. I tried to capture their personalities, while still keeping a clean overall design. I just love how it looks over their playful flour-fight engagement shot! They plan to use the logo on their beer stein favors. Congratulations, guys!

Vintage woodtype used for digital typography

A few weeks ago, I came across an intriguing image that I wanted to use for a flyer for an upcoming live music event. The image is from a rare book, and I wanted to retain that hand-printed-ink-on-aged-paper look with the typography. At first I started to isolate the letters from around that same page and copy/paste them to form words, but soon decided I didn't like the serif typeface. After some pondering on how best to execute my plans, I contacted my friend Katherine Case, the poet and letterpress artist whom I used to intern for when she lived in the bay area. Katherine now has her own studio in Reno, Meridian Press, where she prints beautiful custom letterpress books and broadsides.

Within just a couple weeks of our conversation, I received a lovely stamp-covered tube in the mail. Katherine had hand-set both large woodtype and 72 point Helvetica, and had even printed it in teal (my favorite color) so that I could put them up on my wall afterward. Fantastic!

I then digitized the posters, creating high-resolution tiffs, and isolated the letters so that I could use them later in my digital projects. Huge thanks to Katherine! I plan to put them to good use, though I promise that I will eventually get myself back into the letterpress studio too.

  Shown here are the poster, and resulting digital type.


Additionally, I think this video does a nice job of demonstrating the feeling and atmosphere of a letterpress studio.