MidwestLove Art & Design

Ok, this is a little bit of self promotion as my band Venna is also playing the show this poster is promoting, but I was pretty pleased with how this came together so I wanted to post it none the less. Plus, it bears the name of one of the most prolific, intelligent, well spoken songwriters to ever pick up a guitar and I can’t help but bragging that I got the chance to put his name next to my band’s on a poster… next to a little guitar that I drew, none the less. I feel like I won a contest or something!

This was intended to be a 3 color silk screen, with two color options printed side by side on an 11×17 (double the promo per page!). I’m not sure which color scheme I like better…

And here’s the original illustration of the guitar, just cause it will never show up in it’s entirety anywhere else but my sketch book.

In all seriousness, this guy’s music is absolutely unparalleled in my life as far as meaning, inspiration and longevity. It was an honor to do this piece. Hopefully I did it justice. So let me know what you think, and grab one if you see them posted up anywhere!
-marky

Today I sent off the CD packaging for one of my favorite local bands, Kid, You’ll Move Mountains. This is a veritable super-group of talented musicians formed from members of the bands Troubled Hubble, El Oso and Inspector Owl, the latter two I’ve had the honor of not only designing for in the past, but seeing play many times and getting to become great friends with over the years. Needless to say, this project was an immense amount of fun and it’s always rewarding to design for a band that you’ve got a personal stake in.

This was done as an eco-wallet, so the front and the back covers could be comprised of one seamless image, like so…

There were a few different renderings done with typesetting added to the back, but when it came down to it, both the band and I agreed that the piece spoke much louder without any song titles or typesetting at all. The initial whale illustration actually came from a rejected concept for the From The Headline project. The band suggested the idea of having various items coming from inside the “belly of the whale”… a concept I was happy to run with.

Here’s the interior. All of the illustrations were done with pen, scanned and painted in photoshop. I actually did about 20 different spot illustrations, but these were the ones that I either liked the best, or just felt right. I especially liked the camera…

Overall, I was incredibly pleased with the way this project came together, but the toughest thing was actually trying to work around the unusual amount of punctuation in the bands name… I was pretty proud of this solution-

 That’s all for now. Should I start posting pictures of the actual printed pieces? Would anyone be interested in that? Let me know.

12/9 Update- got the CD’s back yesterday and they look rad. I’ll post pictures soon. Also, there’s a really nice interview with Jim from KYMM over at The Deli and he spends some time talking about the album art. Check it out!

-marky

Here’s a poster I just finished up for eccentric Chicago band Berry’s upcoming show at the Empty Bottle. This was drawn and textured in Illustrator. I’d love to have an opportunity to do more fun illustrated projects like this.

I think this guy was my favorite…

I’m pretty excited about this one. A while back, the incredibly soulful young chauntreusse Kelsey Wild commissioned us to do a website for her. We initially went ahead with a design that was based on real life photography of Kelsey cut out and placed among black and white sketchbook-esque drawings of natural scenery and animals. We got as far as having a hired photographer do a shoot, doing all of the illustrations, and actually coding out and almost getting ready to launch the site when Kelsey had some second thoughts about the whole idea. The look was pretty cool in and of itself, but she didn’t feel it represented her aesthetic sense as an artist, which is always our first and foremost goal when associating imagery to a person or band. It has to be something they feel comfortable putting their name on. Naturally Kelsey and I went back to the drawing board and she came up with some great ideas about going more organic and handmade, rustic but not country. So here’s what I came up with…

I constructed six differnt “found art” collages comprised of various pieces of junk, bits of paper, old receipts, scraps from heather’s sewing table and other random objects that I found laying around my house. I then photographed them and strung them all together in Photoshop to make a continual horizontal image, which would actually be about six feet long if laid out in real life.

Click on this to see the full image…

The website will scroll horizontally when a navigation button is clicked and each collage will act as a frame for the content at that location. It will make more sense when it’s completed… Anyway, this was incredibly fun and definitely a challenge, as I’ve never done anything like this before.

The office took the biggest hit-

I’ll make sure to post when the site goes live.

-marky

New Illustration for Snapdragon Records “Halloween Massacre” show poster. Just thought it would be in the spirit (no pun intended) of the upcoming Halloween season to share it with you. This was inked with a regular fine tipped sharpie and colored in Illustrator.

Here’s the full poster-

What is everyone going for this halloween? I’m making my kids each their own WALL•E costume, and I’m pretty excited. Maybe I’ll post pictures of those here when they’re done.

-marky

I just finished this up today, so I wanted to make a quick post of it. This is the cover art for Wisconsin one-man-band This Is The Shiver, the alias of Tom Toboloski. Again, this is a web only release that I really wish was getting a full print run. Each piece was hand painted and cut out. No computer trickery here save for some Photoshop brightness/contrast adjustment and some Illustrator type treatment. What you see above is the final product.

Maybe I’ll post some making of pics later…

-marky

edit- here are some pictures of the pieces being assembled. sorry i didn’t post this sooner, i just didn’t have the time to grab them off my camera until now.

Just wrapped up CD packaging design for FL natives (and 1 Milwaukee transplant) Transmit Now. They wanted something bright and oddly whimsical to represent their flashy, smirking power-pop. This was a fun mixed media project incorporating inked illustrations, water colors, photography, and digital layout. I got to draw a bunch of animals with transmitters for heads (not radios, mind you… very original and legal transmitter heads) and throw paint all over them. Here’s what came out of it.

I think this guy is my favorite…

I was also asked to work up some apparel designs that corresponded with the CD art… this was my favorite of those. All the vine work is hand drawn and inked and the animals were lifted from the CD packaging.

This one had nothing to do with the CD art, but I just really liked how it came together. All the lettering was hand drawn, and the squid monster was drawn in Illustrator. Thank American Apparel for the model.

-marky

MN area band Firefight came back to me with the idea of putting together a cover image for their upcoming online only release. Since this was going to be their last release as a band, I figured we should go all out and do something fun. The title of a release is always a good place to start looking for the visual cues that direct a concept, and with this one being called “Ashes”, the direction seemed pretty obvious.

I started by printing up and cutting out a large image of their “phoenix” logo that I had previously designed for their “Natural Disaster” EP packaging. Then I went about burning some good ol’ wood and newspaper in the clay kiln out back and scooping the still hot embers into a big bowl. I then stuck the cut out of the logo on a piece of white poster board and sprayed all around it with some regular old spray adhesive. After the poster board was thoroughly sprayed, I proceeded to dump the ashes all around it, completely covering the logo. Then, I lifted away the cutout, and viola- instant logo reversal in wood ash. After a few well lit pics, some photoshop contrast adjustment, and some simple type treatment we have one (online) CD cover.

This was a great little project, and it’s always nice to get your hands dirty when making art. I kinda wish this was getting a full print run so I could do more with it, but if nothing else this was a fine way to put some punctuation on a the closing statement of a fun band’s short career. Here are some making of pics…

What’s up with my wonky wrist in that picture?

-marky

I always meant to post this, and apparently I forgot… until now.

Rebeca from Betta Promotions in Chicago asked me to design a poster for her upcoming Darfur benefit show. Since this is a great benefit for a extremely worthy cause, and almost all of the bands playing are good friends of mine (including both of the bands that I play for), I wanted to do something a little bit more extravagant than I would’ve done for a regular show poster. Hopefully the subject matter isn’t too heavy handed… I was attempting some amount of subtlety in conveying the idea of relief. Hmmm…

Anyway, the background was done in watercolor at 11 x 17″ and then typeset over in Illustrator. Rebeca suggested the brilliant quote that was used at the bottom.