Always and Echoes single

The new single from White Belt Yellow Tag is released on Distiller Records this month on a download only format, it's the first time I've designed a single and it's not had a physical release. It's quite disappointing really, I like this one best out of the two previous singles and I'm not sure if anyone's going to see it. Still is made me happy for about 12 minutes.

The band are getting a lot of press at the moment, and we're just finishing up the album artwork. It's a massive idea that hopefully will bring all of the single designs together without just repeating them. Once it's all signed off I'll post the art and concepts.

Life on Earth Arrives

We've finally completed the artwork for 'Life on Earth'. It's been a long project and working closely with Acid Jazz and the band, we've developed a style that started as a seed on the first single and progressed from there. My only reference points from Andy Crofts, (The Moon's front man, writer, and Paul Weller's keyboard player) were to reflect the unashamed 60's sound of The Moons and throw a little bit of Saul in there.

It's been a great project to work on, to the credit of Acid Jazz each release has had a physical vinyl 7" and the album is being release as an LP as well as a CD, so it's a great showcase for the artwork.

Here's the booklet artwork that supported the CD release  (click to enlarge);

Spread 1

Spread 2

Spread 3

And finally the back cover.

I was really pleased with how the back cover turned out, I love the typesetting on it and I really liked the Planet Head illustration, this featured as an early idea for the album cover, but he band didn't dig it so I moved on.

To find out more about the band and when the album's being released click here.

Real to Reel Stationery Collection

Doing something for the kids is good right? Real to reel Media was setup in 2008 by James Lockey and Ian Byatt with a strong belief in empowering the marginalised and disadvantaged members of the community through mixed media projects, predominantly film and music.

I've been helping them out with their brand and corporate image. Click the image to see larger version.


More on Real to Reel here.

An Escape Plan live poster

So my first job of the new year and it's for An Escape Plan, a band I used to play in, and fronted by my good friend Craig Brown. A man who, since he played at my wedding, I'm forever in debt to.

There really wasn't a brief for this job, I'm very familiar with AEP's work, and we share an artistic vision for the band so we both know exactly how we want it all to look, scarecrows has always been a theme of the band, it's a long story...

The gig is at Northampton Labour Club, on 23rd Jan with support from Joel Harries. If you want to hear the band click here.

It's been a while since I've done any gig or club posters, especially in Northampton, it feels good to be back and it's nice to see the new Citizen logos get an outing.

The more I look at this, the more I think it might be the best gig poster I've ever done. This is my previous favourite.

Nightmare Day Single release

The second single from the Moons, 'Nightmare Day' is due for release in January 10, with artwork by my goodself, Citizen. this is the follow up single to 'Torn Between Two', released in 2009.

I've continued the theme of the illustration style from the first single, which incidentally is something that has carried over to the album artwork. The Moons wanted to keep a strong Saul Bass feel to the art, but move it on from the first release, principally by the introduction of colour.

So I got married...

...and we needed an invite. We wanted something different, something people could keep, something that was kind to the environment... we ended up with a tea towel, The Original Wedding Tea Towel no less. An idea that was received so well we decided to make a mini business out of it.

Working on stuff and filling my resources

I haven't posted anything for a while, everything seems held up by record companies, but I'm pleased to report that in the new year I'll be posting single and album artwork for White Belt Yellow Tag, and single and albums artwork for The Moons. Everything is done and signed off, but we're just waiting for release dates.

In the meantime all this work has forced me to overhaul my resource archive, recently I found this great site and pretty much downloaded everything on it: mediamilitia.com.

So first I'm going to get married, then January there's going to be a whole raft of work coming out of the studio. It's some of my best work, I'm looking forward to sharing it.