OBN IIIs ep...

Austin's OBN III's recently released their 1st Lp, which made me think "now would be a great time to show you how rad their 1st ep looked"....

i love the simplicity and attitude of this cover art.... just a nice, cool illustration of some broken glass, what could be more punk than that!?! the jumbled type used for the band name is bold and rather pedestrian, but i think it kind of adds to the humor of the cover art. it's just great...

these sleeves were full color offset printed on a white uncoated stock, folded and glued. the back cover is a very structured, very common layout we've probably all seen before. that said, i feel they did an excellent job handling all the spacial and typographical balances within this panel. i love the mix of bold / condensed fonts and all the playful use of size scale to create order....

no insert, so here is a shot of the A side label. certainly passes for a good looking label, but it could have used a little more interest...

nice work Tic Tac Totally!

When The Dying Calls...

i just finished printing up these new art prints that i had designed at the same time as "The Hunter" art print that is currently showing at the "Heavy Metal Poster Show" in philly. these are 5 color 18" x 24" screen prints on 120 lb black and charcoal linen paper... click HERE to purchase!

Destroy All Monsters Book....

Primary Information Publishing just released a completed book version of the Destroy All Monsters magazines a few months ago, and i finally got my hands on one this past week! it contains all 6 issues released between 1976-1978 as well as the incomplete 7th issue which was never released. as long as i've known about the Destroy All Monsters projects i have been obsessed with their work. i love the idea of a band that organically flows between audio and visual creation. although Niagara is probably the most well known and prolific artist from the group today, all the members of the band hand their hands in the making of these magazines. the result is a truly unique and wild creation that not only spans many styles and genres but was also years ahead of its' time. here are some shots of a bunch of my favorite spreads, but seriously, every page is a jaw-dropper....

i have to say, they did an excellent job pulling together a beautiful finished product that still feels like a hand-made zine! this book is 270 pages that are mostly one color printed on various colored papers with some full color printed pages sprinkled within. you can pick up a copy directly from the publisher, which i highly recommend....

Herds Lp...

not new, but i love all the art that HERDS pulled together for all their releases. i recently came across this 12" they released on Fashionable Idiots and figured it was a good opportunity to shed some light on what they've been up to. the artwork is credited to Feeding, check out the bold and beautiful line work in this illustrative cover art. the thick black bar at the top of the art with the wide set type within it really brings a dynamic element to this design while balancing the positive / negative space...

these covers were screen printed with black ink on a raw chip board material and then folded. the back cover art is a continuation of the front cover wrapped around. it is rare to find an example of this form of front / back cover concept art that actually executes this well when isolated from the other half, but in this case i feel that both panels work just as well on their own as they do together....

here is a shot of the front and back cover unfolded...

the unfolded covers also have a full bleed insert screen printed on the inside of the jacket. when i look at this, i feel like this was two separate 12" x 12"panels that were just combined at the last minute to be one insert as opposed to being a single cohesive design. if you just look at the top panel, there is a layout happening there. if you look at just the bottom, it's a lyric sheet. framing it all within a box helped it a bit but in the end it doesn't make it "complete" in my book.... it's not the end of the world or anything, just an observation...

A and B labels are a little sparse, but still manage to pull off a good level of design. it seems almost counter-intuitive to sit such large heavy type so low on the label without anything larger above it to balance it, but it still works as a complete piece with the "A 33" type below it...

nice work! click the links to support these guys....

Heavy Metal Poster Show....

i will have a new screen print on display and for sale in the "Heavy Metal Poster Show" that is opening this saturday at the Grindcore House in Philadelphia. below is the image i created for the show, it is an 18" x 24" 4 color screen print on 120lb duplex linen paper. i printed these posters on both grey and black paper, just 20 of each, in different colorways. there will be about 20 artists with new work on display just for this show, so go check them out in person if you are in the area!

Saturday September 10th 2011

@ The Grindcore House

1515 S. 4th St

Philadelphia, PA

19147

to view more of my screen printed poster art, click here.

The Shirks Ep...

i came across another really cool release from Grave Mistake recently, check out this The Shirks Ep.... really nice "fast and loose" illustration style going on in this cover image. i mean, it is clearly rendered well, and then it has just the right amount of slop in all the right places so as not to be mistaken as a meticulous piece. the only thing i don't like about it is the way it crops out the left side of the art ever so slightly.... ack!

these are professionally offset printed and glued 7" jackets on a coated cover stock. the back cover is very sparse with lots of negative space. the typography was arranged with enough care and design sensibility that it does read as a composition, which is a good thing since that's all there is to look at. song titles were hand set with Letraset, the fine print was banged out on a good old fashioned typewriter. well played, sir.....

the A and B labels are straight outta the Delta! alex, please make this the Grave Mistake standard issue label...

nice job guys!

Bone Awl - "Bowing Heads" lp

i recently came across this Bone Awl record while at Vacation Vinyl here in Los Angeles... this cover is a fucked up, photocopied mess and i absolutely love it! really nice and abstract one color collage that has a strong design perspective. there is so much dirt and grit in this thing i can't even really make out what the image is, but i do love the way they used the photo copier distortion as shading in select areas of the art...

these covers were professionally printed and glued on a standard 12" sleeve. the back cover is another great collage comprised entirely of photocopier distortion. i like the way they played with positive and negative space in the composition. there is a lot of visual interest on this panel considering there isn't any sort of central image, just typography. this could have easily been a miss as a design, but the way they approached mixing textures and color keeps the piece very interesting....

A and B labels are as straightforward as they get. just the facts, jack....

this is available from Iron Tyrant Records....

Gas Chamber...

i got an amazing submission package of 2 records and a print from Buffalo-based Gas Chamber.... this first ep features original artwork and a layout by the great railcar artist Buzz Blurr, which is epic beyond words. though his work is best known for his expressive chalk sketches on the sides of trains, i love his detailed fine art pieces just as much. for the cover of the "corpse with levity" ep, Buzz came up with one of his chiseled and nearly geometric renderings of a bird. i really like his use of positive and negative space within the illustration and how the artwork sits rather unassumingly small and in the center of the cover....

these covers were printed on a really nice 100lb uncoated cover stock and were then cut and folded. the back cover features 3 photos of some of Buzz's sculpture work with his hand written type. just like the front cover, keeping the art small and centered in a sea of black space makes for a very impacting design....

unfold the cover for the the lyrics, this is "type as composition" at its finest....

A and B labels were kept clean and easy, each with just the essential information on a black label. the black record sleeve was a nice touch too....

this next record is an awesome clear flexi that comes packaged with a transparent insert. the grooves of the record laying on top of photo on the insert actually creates a pretty cool overlay effect. while there's not a whole lot to look at, i feel it's a pretty memorable record....

here is a shot of just the insert. i have no idea what is going on in this photo, if it's a pic that the band created themselves, or just some random creepy image. it actually would have been really cool if they had worked some liner notes into this insert in a creative way....

here is a shot of just the flexi. again, i like the minimalism here, but maybe a song title or two would have been good....

last but not least, there was an amazing wood cut art print included! this 12" x 14" poster was relief printed in an edition of 15 on a delicate rice paper. the combination of the thin coarse paper and the pressed markings from the printing technique bring a rich textural quality to the finished piece when it's in you hand. really nice work...

big thanks to patrick for sending all this along, be sure to check out the Gas Chamber page to grab your own copies!