Some more recent work for New Weird Australia – this time it’s the cover art and layout for the second volume of the Broadcast series – which essentially compiles performances from the New Weird Australia radio show on FBi.

While the branding and artwork system will continue to be used for a variety of purposes, project off-shoots like the Broadcast series allows us to do something a little different visually, just to keep things interesting. This particular cover was loosely inspired by two of my favourite album covers Andy Warhol’s The Velvet Underground & Nico and Michael Vadino’s LCD Soundsystem. Broadcast Two sees elements from both these covers mashed up with a distinctly Australian flavour, featuring a mirrorball, six-stitcher cricket ball and a banana, which combine to form a slightly deranged looking smiley face.

All stock images were converted to greyscale and then treated with a half-tone effect. These were placed onto a spot colour using the Overlay blending mode.

Typography is all set in the beautiful Caslon, which I had a great deal of fun with on the back, playing with the various weights, glyphs and superscript.

Find out more information about the series here.

Download the compliation and artwork for free from here.

I should also point out that I assisted The Nest with the design of the New Weird Australia site, which has just gone live. Check it out.

Just for fun I produced a few alternative versions of the cover art – which I’ve included here for your viewing pleasure. Both feature essentially the same idea as the final cover art, although the “eyes” have been replaced by a CD & a black balloon in one, and a tennis ball & a diamond in the other.

You can download this compilation for FREE from here.

As part of my ongoing work for New Weird Australia I’ve recently produced a template and artwork for the first in a series of releases entitled New Editions.

New Editions aims to help promote and distribute new experimental Australian music in a collection of physical and digital releases. Punters like yourself have the option of downloading a digital version of each album for free, or to help support the project and artist by purchasing a physical copy.

The first New Edition is by Melbourne based ambient / industrial / hip-hop group Caught Ship, with their album Start Dencing Dad Start Dencing. It’s a great release, and really helps set a high quality standard for future releases.

The artwork (and overall layout) concept uses the system and assets created for the New Weird Australia branding – which is essentially built around a 4×4 grid filled using a library of geometric shapes, strange images and hand-made textures. Part of the idea behind using a square grid for all artwork was so that it could easily fit into both CDs and posters, so it’s great to see that it actually works in practice.

Again, type is set in Nimbus Sans – which is the primary New Weird Australia typeface. A strip of text with the New Editions label name and “edition number” runs vertically down the front, and next to that is the band name and catalogue number which makes up the sleeve spine (also vertical).

The artwork is being printed onto a white sticker, which will be affixed to a recycled carboard wallet containing an audio CD and artwork created by the band themselves.

I used the band’s artwork as a reference guide for the cover art colours and (to an extent) the imagery, which features decorative Middle Eastern textiles and jewelry and ancient Egyptian artwork. A nice RGB colour scheme emerged out of it all too – which also helps tie it all together. There’s a bit of improvised formalism to the way each piece of art comes together for each project, so I’m glad that the system can not only accomodate that and also allow for the specific project to have a unique look.

Future releases in this series may continue to reference supplied artwork in unusual ways, or they may also directly use assets supplied by the band (such as photography). There’s still quite a bit of tweaking that goes into each image and a great deal of consideration into the way each element fits into the composition. To a large extent the final result really comes down to how pleasing everything looks and well each element fits together, so how and when new assets are used will largely depend on those considerations.

The image below shows just how the template comes together. Click for a larger version.

You can download (name your price) the album right now from here.

A new design for Tantrum Theatre this week – an identity, poster and flyer for a performance that will be part of the Sydney Fringe festival this year called Peepshow. This will actually be MK2 of the Peepshow performance, and the first time it has been performed outside of Newcastle.

“Tantrum Theatre will present the bold and challenging installation performance, Peepshow, at PACT 107 Railway Parade, Erskineville, NSW 2043. This tantalising work was the success of the 2009 Newcastle arts scene with its innovative use of a found space. The work exposed performers and audiences alike to an experimental mode of performance, challenging perceptions and allowing an active collaboration between audience and performer in each show. It presented audiences with an insight into the darker recesses of Newcastle’s psyche, as seen through the eyes of its young people, and highlighted some of the social concerns that our young people have, as well as concerns of the community around issues of disused and abandoned spaces and safety within the CBD. Peepshow explores our fascination with what is hidden behind closed doors. The inner workings of us all will be on full display as you enter the Peepshow.”

As the performance is not strictly a part of the 2010 season canon, it was an opportunity to do something a little different visually and really interpret the themes and ideas behind the performance (as outlined above).

As I mentioned in yesterday’s Roundup, I’m currently working on the artwork and design for Tantrum’s 2011 season – which should be finished and revealed in the next few months. Expect something quite different, yet again.

The fabulous photo featured in the poster and flyer was taken by Marcus Ranum

Big thanks to Justine and Brendan at Tantrum for continuing to be such supportive and open-minded clients!

I’m very pleased and excited to reveal some of the designs I’ve been working on for New Weird Australia – an initiative founded by Stu Buchanan that’s designed to promote and support new eclectic and experimental Australian music.

The project began life as an ongoing weekly radio show on FBi Radio Sydney, which is hosted by Stu and features new music, performances and interviews. It soon expanded into a bi-monthly free compilation download, and now the project is expanding its horizons even further with live shows, events and more.

I was contacted by Stu – an award winning designer and seriously excellent human being – to help take the project to the next level with an identity design that includes a logo, poster designs, web design, and artwork that can be used in everything from advertising to album art.

Stu and I share a strong love of classic Swiss modernist design, and this formed the core of the visual direction for the project, with sans-serif typography, simple shapes and clean layouts built on grids and formal structure. From day one there was the desire to use the simplicity, functionality and beauty of this design theory as a foundation, and build something new, unique and personal from there.

We also looked at Julian House’s work for Ghost Box as a point of inspiration, which itself has a particularly evocative and unique take on Swiss modernism. The Ghost Box artwork is interesting in that it retains a certain amount of formal structure and sameness with each edition, however it also changes and evolves over time while still somehow maintaining its essence and identity. The imperfections in the designs and the overall ambience of the collection is something that provided great inspiration too.

Other points of design inspiration have come from the work of Kim Hiorthøy, German studio Hort, and Sydney based Mark Gowing, who have all done extensive, ongoing design work for musicians and record labels. These designers share a commonality in their work in that it is often strikingly modern while also featuring quite gentle, handmade qualities. It is this philosophy and style that I have worked on achieving with New Weird Australia.

The idea for the logo itself (shown at the top of the page) came to me quite quickly. While I explored a variety of different ideas for a logomark (mostly playing with the letterforms of NWA), the idea of simply rendering the name in a beautiful sans-serif font with a few of the letters either backwards or upside down just seemed to click. I felt that this approach was most in-keeping with our overall direction, and would ultimately be the most modular and adaptable way to go, while still possessing a genuine personality of its own. It is designed to be strong, immediate and timeless.

The typeface used in both the logo and all supporting material is Nimbus Sans by URW++. I wanted a strong, simple grotesque sans-serif that was similar to Helvetica or Akzidenz, but less commonly used. Nimbus (released in 1999) was actually based on Helvetica, so it was a perfect fit.

The logo has each word set in title-case, and features at least one letter facing backwards. The letter spacing is tight and considered, yet slightly imperfect. I like the fact that there’s a subtle element of “weirdness” to the logo, without it being heavy handed or obvious. The weirdness isn’t the defining quality of the logo, it’s just one element. At first glance the type treatment almost looks normal, but upon closer inspection it’s revealed that something isn’t quite right. I think that given the diversity of the music promoted by the project, it was best to create a simple logo with just a hint of oddness about it in order to truly allow for the content to speak for itself and encompass the many different musical styles.

Like the logo, the concept for the artwork and layout design came to me quite early on in the process too. Essentially, the idea is based around a 4×4 square grid which can be filled with a collection of assets that include basic shapes, colours, textures and images. All these elements can be combined in an almost infinite number of ways, thus giving the project a strong visual identity that is flexible enough to evolve over time and present something unique at each iteration.

The square grid means that the artwork can fit perfectly in an album cover, it can leave plenty of room for copy on a poster, and will be able to adapt nicely throughout its use on the website.

Here’s the first sample of the logo, final artwork and identity system in use – as a poster for an upcoming New Weird Australia show on Friday 23rd July at Red Rattler, Sydney). The artwork features scanned cardboard textures (with colours modified in Photoshop), hand-drawn repeating textures from the fabulous resource Neubau Modul, and some slightly haunting images taken from an old book on the history of magick. The images were chosen for their sense of being slightly otherworldly and out-of-time, as well as for the story that they tell when placed together. The shapes themselves were chosen for how they look and interact with eachother, as well as the interesting white space that they create when placed together.

There’s definitely an element of controlled chaos at work, and the final result is largely judged on what just looks and feels right. I imagine this almost intuitive approach to how everything gets pieced together will continue to be explored. Each shape in the collection is a vector graphic, and is designed to be scalable for all purposes and sizes – provided it fits within the 4×4 grid. Once the shape layout is worked out, the vectors are then brought into Photoshop for textures and images to be added. Slight overlaps and imperfections in this process are left as part of the artwork.

The aesthetic is deliberately lo-fi, and with the set of rules and assets in place, we can push the design forward without too much risk of overworking or polluting the identity. Where it all goes from here is unknown, which is one of the things that I’m most excited about with the project. While we have all the basic elements designed for now, working out how they will come together each time, what materials will be used, what themes will be explored and how the concept might evolve is something that I’m really looking forward to discovering.

It was an absolute pleasure to work on this project, not simply because I was able to experiment with the sort of design that I personally enjoy, but because the project itself is so great, and run by someone who is passionate and personally invested in what they’re doing.

Stu and I are currently working on the redesign of the website, which should be up soon. We have some tentative plans for other places the design will appear, so keep your eye out for new additions in the series. And don’t forget if you’re in Sydney during July, make sure you get along to the show, I’m sure you’ll be surprised and captivated by what you hear.

In the last couple of weeks I’ve contributed to three excellent projects which I’m very happy to be involved with.

The first is one called They Draw & Cook – which is run by Nate Padavick. The idea behind it is to get artists, illustrators and designers to contribute a piece based around one of their favourite recipies. There are some really exceptional entries up at the site, and I highly suggest getting involved if you have the time.

Mine is a little more abstract and less illustrative than most of the others, and is for Basil Pesto. My wife and I recently got a herb garden going which is what inspired this particular piece. The typography is all scanned from packaging and hand-set. The circles are hand-drawn, re-coloured in Photoshop and placed on a scanned piece of vintage Letraset halftone texture.

Next up I contributed to the second Visual Response project at the shiny and new Australian INFront. The theme for this VR is Black. My take was 25 Songs About Black. The song titles are all set in Adobe Caslon, and are placed across two vinyl records, which themselves form a ‘B’ for Black.

And finally I have contributed to Richard Smith‘s Dollar ReDe$ign project, which aims to revitalize the American currency, and stimulate discussion over its financial and cultural value.

For my submission, I considered the value and integrity of the current design, and looked for a way to update it in terms of its image, security and the perceived worth of the note itself. My concept is largely inspired by the thought that perhaps part of our debt troubles are the fact that we don’t truly give money the reverence it deserves – that perhaps we don’t see money as a symbol of our hard work, and more of an ephemeral means to an end. We often transfer our money for junk and meaningless items, and thus truly devalue the lengths we’ve gone to to get it. My rationale is that perhaps if money looked more like a luxury item itself, we’d be less inclined to spend it on meaningless things, and choose how we invest it more wisely.

The design removes the need for all non-functional decoration, and focuses on security and meaning. Both the $1 and the $100 would have the same security features. Polymer base. Customized metallic inks. A holographic image of a bird in flight. Transparent seals and a bespoke dot matrix font either embossed or printed in raised ink.

The $1 concept features a bald eagle, a symbol of American strength and pride. It’s presented here in an elegant and powerful way, more concerned with beauty than overt patriotism. That patriotic element is definitely in there, being the more commonly used note it’s designed to be “for the people”, however the symbolism is not in-your-face.

The note uses green metallic inks as a tribute to the previous iteration of the note, and the currency still widely being refered to as the “greenback”.

The $100 is printed with gold ink, clearly representing value and wealth, and also giving that gravitas to the note. The bird featured is a dove, which is used here as a symbol of peace. This note is most likely the one to be used internationally, so its purpose is to be a message from the US to the rest of the world, one that seeks to put the past behind us, and to co-exist in harmony. Beautiful, hopeful and powerful.

Incredible use of colour and scale, with flawless composition. All Australian native flora and fauna too.

Enjoy.

Download iPhone wallpaper versions here.

The Employment Liberation Front is a new network of people who have found a way to escape salaried corporate employment, either by freelancing or starting their own business.

The logo design is a contemporary nod to constructivism, and is built around the similarity in the structure of the E, L & F letter forms, all of which can be created by simply adding or subtracting one or two shapes. In the middle of the stack, the L is tilted on its side to add some visual interest and to make a nice wedge in which to fit the title treatment, set in Trade Gothic Condensed Bold #20.

The brief requested that the logo be designed for use as a t-shirt design, so in addition to creating an interesting looking graphic, a couple of coloured and patterned options were provided for this purpose.

Additionally, the L and title treatment can also be detached and used on its own when size is an issue.