June 22nd, 2009
The Ugly Mug Cafe in Ypsilanti is using my logo as their signage now — looks good. If you're in the area check them out, they make a great coffee.
Tags: coffee, logo, ugly mug, ypsilanti
Posted in Portfolio | No Comments »
June 9th, 2009
My boss Antoine has been brewing beer in his spare time, recently I made a couple labels for them and here's how they turned out:
You can see some more on the Media Genesis Facebook page.
Tags: beer, label, mediag
Posted in Portfolio | No Comments »
May 30th, 2009
So I want to take back something I said in Part 1 -- "almost all of the Wu-Tang album art was horrible" is a bit too harsh I think. Some people have really run with that and gotten quite upset, and rightfully so. There are definitely some good ones in there. I've thought about it and I think it would be more accurate to say that my real problem with the original covers was how disjointed they all looked when put in the same playlist. The cleverest thing the Wu-Tang Clan ever did was negotiate separate contracts for everybody, but since these came out on so many different labels the cover art varies drastically. The "Wu-Note Project" is my attempt to amend this all the covers work as a set.
Let me know what you guys think of Part 2, either in the comments here or on Flickr, where I'm posting each as they're made. All in all I'm pretty happy with them, although I wish there was a Killa Bees Volume 2 fit into this series chronologically so I could do that Thelonius Monk yellow/red trick.
Tags: album covers, blue note, Design, remix, wu-tang
Posted in Design, Music, Portfolio | 9 Comments »
May 28th, 2009
I've always loved the NY Magazine Approval Matrix, and now the Wu-Note Project is in my favorite quadrant: Brilliant/Lowbrow. Does this mean I can put "More brilliant than Cat Power and Captain Kirk" -NY Mag on my next resume?
Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »
May 25th, 2009
I caved and created a Tumblr. So far the posts just consist of images from my " design inspiration" folder, songs I've been digging, cover art from songs I've been digging, reposts of Eric's Tumblr, and shared items from Google Reader. It's been a fun experiment in posting things quickly (sometimes automatically) without thinking about them nearly as much as I do for posts here. It's like a quick and dirty version of this site.
Oh and Wu-Note Round 2 is just around the corner -- I'm psyched.
Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
May 13th, 2009
I guess this is old news but a few of us at work just started playing around with xtranormal recently. My friend Matt made a NSFW clip here: http://www.xtranormal.com/watch?e=2009051222281376
Tags: movies, rackets, xtranormal
Posted in Lulz | No Comments »
April 30th, 2009
Wow, big thanks to everyone who checked out my covers and gave me feedback. The response has been great -- in fact I was so psyched about it I went ahead and made #8. This is the only individual one I will post here, the rest will go up on Flickr as they are completed (although don't expect #9 til maybe next week, paying freelance takes priority). Special thanks to Ghostlaced at the Wu-Tang Corp message board and Tom at FreakyTrigger, who went so far as to name the project (Blu-Tang Clan [but maybe I prefer Wu Note Records?]) and offer some analysis:
Sample-based hip-hop is a conversation between the past (the records producers draw on), the present (the scene it emerges from and the audience who embrace it), and the future (its reception, and the possibility of crossover). Remaking Wu-Tang sleeve art as Blue Note sleeve art is making a point: this music, like that music, is classic African-American art.
Whoa dude. The reaction has been almost entirely positive, although a few people pointed out that the Raekwon cover either looked lazy or just didn't "fit." I'm only mentioning this because I felt pretty much the same way and posted it anyway, which I now want to rectify. The original was relying too much on the photo and as a result looked out of place. Rather than redesign it entirely I've tweaked it a bit and replaced it in the original post and on Flickr. From now on I'm going to be much more careful about calling something "done." In the meantime, enjoy, and I'll be back soon with some new stuff.
Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
April 28th, 2009
A little while ago I put a bunch of Wu-Tang (both group and solo) albums on my computer. 21 of them, in fact. I inherited some mild OCD from my mom, and as anyone who has seen my iTunes can attest to, it manifests itself in weird ways. I need to have decent-quality album art for every album on my computer, which currently equals over 90 gigs. The problem was that almost all of the Wu-Tang album art was horrible (ODB's two albums being the only real exceptions) -- no offense to the original designers, but as iconic as they might be they're looking pretty dated these days. So, armed with inspiration from what Olly Moss and others are doing (as written about by me here, and later by Kottke here) and a book of Blue Note Records covers, I set out to remake all 21. The first seven are here (click for full-view):
I've changed the art for these in my iTunes and love the results:
So seven down, fourteen to go. From here on out I'm going to start uploading them to my Flickr Photostream as soon as each is done, so you guys can bug me if I'm not making them fast enough. I'll post the next set of seven here when they're done. In the meantime, enjoy, and let me know if you have any comments or suggestions.
Tags: album covers, blue note, Design, remix, wu-tang
Posted in Design, Music, Portfolio, Uncategorized | 80 Comments »
March 20th, 2009
Made a Space Invaders sprite for the MG Newsletter last month and decided to make some variations today.
Tags: meme-worthy?, space invaders
Posted in Portfolio, Video Games | 1 Comment »
March 3rd, 2009
The article I wrote on Twitter for the Media Genesis newsletter is now live. You can read it (and subscribe to the newsletter) here.
Tags: mediag, newsletter, twitter
Posted in Internets | No Comments »