HYLAS PUBLISHING - BOOK COVERS, JACKETS, MOCK-UPS AND PRODUCTION

In my capacity as a Junior Designer at this small book publisher/packager, I was faced with a variety of duties, from creating cover mock-ups for trade shows, production work and photo research for book layouts, and creating book jackets and cover layouts from the ground up. The pieces here represent all of these aspects of my time there.

HARPERCOLLINS PUBLISHING - CHILDREN'S MARKETING

For reasons of copyright, I am somewhat limited as far as what I can post from my professional work in the publishing industry, but here is a small sample of layouts I worked on during my time at HarperCollins.
I am obviously aware of the humour inherent in the fact that I spend the majority of my time creating these dark, dour and — some would say — "evil" pieces of artwork and music, while at other times in a professional capacity, I've found myself producing items such as these:

JARL - FRAGILE CONFRONTATION CD

Erik Jarl is a fascinating individual, who — like all good artists — seems cursed with having led a particularly difficult existence.
His audio work is beautifully intense, dark and minimal, while his personality is genuine, soft-spoken and gentle.

This was the second JARL CD I released. The layout was constructed using submitted images and text, but again I was essentially given free rein. I love the textures in these images, like corroded metal plates, or concrete that has been eroded to a smooth finish.
Interestingly enough, the same phrases could be used to describe the audio component of this album.

JARL + IRM - TSHIRT DESIGNS

Another aspect of producing musical releases is designing and printing tshirts, which are — at the most basic level — another, very effective kind of advertisement. These shirts were printed in June 2005 to sell at the first APEX FEST, where Jarl and IRM appeared live for the first (and, to date, only) time in the States.


"Virgin Mind' was released by Cold Meat Industry very shortly before Erik and Martin arrived in New York.
I released Erik's solo album "Fragile Confrontation" at roughly the same time.

KAITEN - TURNING OF THE HEAVENS CD

Kaiten is a Swedish industrial project consisting of Erik Jarl from IRM and Lirim Cajani of INSTITUT (another Cold Meat Industry act), who came to the States to perform on my dime at the first APEX FEST in June 2005, along with Martin Bladh. The name of the project originates with a World War II-era mini-submarine, which was a sort of manned torpedo that served as the nautical equivalent of "Kamikaze" planes. The Kaiten pilots would intentionally maneouvre their craft into the hulls of enemy ships in an effort to sink them. Awful.
The layout is by intention, extremely simplistic, but evocative of the subject matter called to mind by the project's name and album's title.







In keeping with the visual minimalism of the release, the discface image is simply the black logo on the raw silver of the CD.

LIVE EVENT HANDBILLS & POSTERS

As the owner of a small underground record label, organising and promoting live events is a matter of course.
From September 2006-December 2008, I curated a series of live events called Unsound NYC, as well as three bi-annual festivals called "APEX FEST," the most recent of which took place in November 2009.
Here is a small sampling of some handbills and posters that I designed, in no particular order.



















I would also periodically design fliers for events in which I was not directly involved, but that included artists who were friends of mine, or of whom I was simply a big fan...

ANNIHILVS POWER ELECTRONIX - ADVERTISING

Here are a few examples of magazine ads that ran in underground music publications such as IndustrialnatioN Magazine, Convivial Hermit, and others, at various intervals during the last ten years.