New Cassettes – Winterhead

Popular electric indie rock beat combo The New Cassettes approached me about a year ago to create the art for their new album on N13 Records and of course I agreed. we met in The Charles Bradlaugh and discussed what they were looking for. They wanted something reflective of their ideas behind the music, less abstract than perhaps some people might approach this, and with a little bit of Roxy Music sexiness thrown in. 


My first idea was to find out what the band actually thought the music was about, so I asked them to each put together around 5-10 images for each song that represented it's origins, they did this and I created this montage:

This gave me a texture with which to fill my illustration, I wanted to use this with shading to create a layered affect across skin tones and body shapes, so the next stage was to create the model for the montage to sit within, this was done with this illustration, that kept the limbs and chair separate so that could be selected and different parts of the montage layered in:

Next step was to drop parts of the montage into the areas of the illustration, then apply the shading and draw the hair, the end result was a 1000mmx1000mm illustration that I could crop into to make different covers and pages for the booklet, and never reveal the full piece of work;

And that's how it was done, simple but effective and a beautiful piece of work that captures the spirit of the band, and the ideas behind the music.

The album is out this March on N13 Records.

Please get in touch is you'd like Citizen to develop album or single artwork for you, or if you have any questions on how this artwork was created.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07738 175 614

The Bad Sleeves. No.1: Kasabian - Velociraptor

In the first of the series of what will obviously run into the thousands, I've decided to tackle the cover for the new Kasabian album, Velociraptor, a cover so woeful that upon seeing it, this (soon to be) long running feature was born.

Kasabian have a sordid history of terrible covers, and themselves are a terrible cover of every single rock and roll cliché ever written, in every copy of Mojo they've ever skim read. I've always believed that if you want to make a credible sequel to Spinal Tap, you could not go far wrong than to follow these bozos around for a year.

The reason I hate this cover, is because I know exactly how it happened. I've been there when you've got an 'alright' illustration, but it's a strange shape, somethings you can't make it sit interestingly on the page, so you try juggling it around and then duplicating it until you end up with something like this. You briefly have a moment of thinking it's good, then you get a cup of tea, sit back down and delete it. This last part tragically never happened, and somehow it's been (probably) been pressed to 20,000 gatefold pieces of vinyl, that the band insisted on releasing (probably) at the budgetary detriment of the jobs of two juniors at the record label.

There's two things that I thoroughly dislike about this, the first is that all the heads are the same, I think if they'd all been different illustrations, I'd have just thought it was terrible and forgotten about it. The worst thing about it is, the negative space that the heads create, it's a shape that's nearly a swastika (that could have been so Bowie man!), but it's not, it's the most eye catching part of the design, and it's NOTHING but a hole for the typography to sit in (which is terrible by the way).

A great designer would have created the heads in a way that when put together created something relevant to album and the band, and made this work visually on a another level, this could have made this potentially a great cover.

It annoys me because this kind of work is nearly impossible to get these days, and these sleeves literally stay around FOREVER, and designers have to think about that all the time they're working on it. The work is so half-baked, so nearly a good idea, and so lazily executed that I'm as cross as I'm jealous that someone has so many opportunities they can afford to let even one slip away and not produce something beautiful.

Let me know if there are any covers you'd like me to review, or if you've got one you want to rip into for this blog.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

My Big Face

It's really quite odd seeing my face on People Per Hour every time I log in. Good though I suppose.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

Howdy Partners

I've recently updated the Citizen site to include a list of partners that I work with, I'm hoping this will increase Citizen's offering and expand the size and scope of work we're able to go after.

You may also notice that we've gone from an 'I' to a 'we'.

The first person on the roster is Maria Ingram. I've worked with Maria for many years. She's a creative copywriter who's got a good eye for detail, and a sound conceptual brain. She's great for bouncing ideas around with, and then sewing a concept up with a neat little strapline.

Next up, Karen Brown. Yes my wife, but also my partner in business and someone I've worked with at my previous agency. Karen is a great help to me at Citizen, she's an incredible organiser, and solid strategic thinker. Previously Karen worked at BBH, on the British Airways and Audi accounts where she was named 'Project Manager of the year in 08 and 09'.

Finally (for the moment) Phil Sharp. Phil is a magnificent photographer, I've worked with him lots of times over the years including on the One Leicester campaign in 2009.

Phil's work had been all over the place in The Guardian, Wallpaper, Time Out and NME, and he's recently been directing the photography on some short films. What makes him such a great portrait photographer is, (along side his technical skills) his ability to relax his subjects, and really get the best out of them. I really enjoy working with Phil, the best work I've done has come from this partnership.


So, there's the basis of the Citizen team, and I have no plans to stop there. If you think you have something to offer us, please get in touch and perhaps we can create something together.

I've taken some pretty big meetings in the last couple of weeks, and I've got some interesting projects lined up, so far so good. One month in and Citizen is still standing, I'm proud of that.


www.citizenstudios.co.uk
Ben@citizenstudios.co.uk


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Life on Earth Alternate Cover

It's coming up to a year since I finished the artwork for The Moons 'Life on Earth', and I thought now was a good time to reveal the first idea I pitched to Andy. It still resonates with me, and personally, I think is a more iconic design than what we eventually went with, (which I do still love by the way), but just feel like this shades it. It's more striking, and for me, looks more genuinely 60's than the final execution.

I remember finishing it and having that excited feeling the my stomach, then emailing it off and it getting rejected. That feeling when you really love something, and your client doesn't, and nothing you say will change their mind is really crushing. I think sometimes it's a problem of working on email, face-to-face you can really demonstrate your passion for a piece, and it can be infectious.

It takes me about a week to pick myself up after a debunk, and generally I can't sleep very well during that time, it's very dramatic I know! Anyway, we kept some of these elements for the artwork throughout the booklet, so it wasn't entirely wasted, and, together with Andy we forged a great campaign that I was really happy with.

You can buy the 'Life on Earth' with it's actual cover here, it's a great piece of work.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

Nice little mention.

It's was nice to get a mention on Mudkiss for The 66 artwork I produced earlier in the year, here's what The 66 said about Citizen:

A very talented guy called Benjamin Brown created the artwork.  He’s worked with a number of high profile names and acts for their artwork over the years, so we were delighted to secure his services – it felt like a missing link.  When I gave him the brief for the logo via the label, he told Mark ‘that is the most insane fucking brief I’ve ever had in my life, I like it’ it’s rife with meanings and symbology that I can’t, and possibly never will go into! But it means something to each of us – a hint? The Fly is actually a rare ‘Black Bee’. With the EP cover, Ben simply took all his talent and came up with something that was exactly right and was visioned – and then some! All the credit goes to Mr Brown for that one.

You can read the full article about here at http://www.mudkiss.com/the66interview.htm


Find out more about my band artwork and the kind of services I offer by visiting www.citizenstudios.co.uk