pda is a night of dj’ed electro, indie, retro music and the kitchen sink at Elysium that happens semi-regularly. Its title is based on the song by Interpol.

For this design, I wanted a bright piece that would stand out in a dark nightclub. I wanted the turntable/mixing graphic to look like what mixing sounded like, using the grooves of the record to splice into one another and then the dj’s arms to resemble turntable arms, almost robotic. But simple yet warm.

The type used for the logo and body text are Chunk Five (Adobe) and Skia.

Event info:
doors at 9:30, free before 10
Sept 25, 2009
Elysium, 705 Red River
$3 cover, 21+

Designing a unisex t-shirt for Loves, Mariessa posed an interesting challenge — after all, her name has the word love in it and hearts in her logo. Since the brand is a boutique fashion line, it needed it to be edgy (my favorite descriptive word), bright and cool. I had my work cut out for me.

Turns out Mariessa didn’t like any of these — she’s going with something more distressed and more about clothing construction, a dress form and sewing machine parts — but I liked the execution of integrating hearts with a larger concept about either 1) a tough act or 2) big talk to make it more likely that a boy would wear it.

Poster for the theater show the Long Now by the Shrewd Productions, opening May 21st at the Blue Theatre. Written and directed by Beth Burns, this story considers the turbulent nature of time, and the impossible hope of capturing a perfect present.

The challenge in this poster design was creating a piece that was at once technical (Time is one of the characters in show), organic with a bit of danger that looms just on the edges. We went through several iterations — one was too whimsical, one was too serious — before settling on this one. I think that the paper texture that I used for the background works well in the scope of the show, the puppet that plays Time has that same kind of rough hew to it, projecting on a canvas sheet.

The font for the text is Gotham. The background is a found schematic and I drew the birdcage, tracing and referencing several photos online. The girl and the bird are stock.

You can find out more information here.

pda, a night of dj’ed electro, indie, retro music and the kitchen sink at Elysium that happens semi-regularly. Its title is based on the song by Interpol.

For this design, I wanted to have a display of vinyl record sleeve spines like you’d see a shelf of books, to demonstrate the variety of music. I setup two photo shoots, one at my friend John Gross’ house and then one at Backspin Records but I had a problem with the readability and clarity of the spines — some were just old and battered and some were still in plastic — and then not having all the records I’d need to have. So, I did what anyone’d do in my situation, I created it from scratch.

Some are based on actual spines, some are based on the cd spines, some are just completely made up. Some of the logos were found (Röyksopp, Bjork, the Sisters of Mercy overbombing graphic), some were traced (Depeche Mode, elastica, TV on the Radio), some were created from thin air.

The type used for the logo and info are the Maple Origins (created by Last Soundtrack) and two flavors of Condensed Futura.

Event info:
doors at 9:30, free before 10
May 29, 2009
Elysium, 705 Red River
$3 cover, 21+

A leftover concept from Mariessa’s tshirt preliminary designs.

Since her brand — Loves, Mariessa — is very much based in the cool and a stylistic pursuit of the fashionable, I loved the idea of the paparazzi camera, one version with cheese and one with love. In this day and age of hyper documentation, we’re taking pictures of everything, Twittering our every thought and treating gossip like the news. The pop of the flashbulb reinforces self worth and promotes envy, it seems.

My favorite part? Has to be the half smile that could be a sly grin or a cool wink, maybe both.

Approved t-shirt designs for Loves, Mariessa (the ones with the logo) and a few leftover comps. The approved designs are being screened by Bearded Lady printing in Austin, Texas.

Five logo treatments for rocket fuel labs, a think tank/incubator with some venture capital leanings.

As of this writing, the client is leaning towards the bubbling test tube/beaker.

The title for the 2009 play festival — choices ranged from Flashback Dance to Ya Mama Don’t Dance — clearly informed the poster/postcard design. With limited time, Time Steps — also a type of dance step — became the title and I really liked the idea of demonstrating time running backwards in a kind of reverse hourglass series. I also tried a clock face with backwards text but it didn’t quite establish a backwards time line as clearly.

Every year, the plays written and chosen have to follow three rules — this year, they were:

• The play must go backward, from beginning to end
• Include a sudden dance break that causes a shift in the action
• Include three things your mother told you not to do

I’m not sure what kind of dance can made from the steps I drew in the poster, but it looks like a lot of fun, eh?
As the copy font, I used Gotham. For the title, I used Sketch Rockwell.

A sketch done for my new favorite song while listening to said song — a cover of Spiderbags’ “Waking Up Drunk” performed by Titus Andronicus. These New Jersey boys played it during their SXSW set at Club DeVille. Here’s what it sounded it like when they recorded it for Daytrotter last year.

[See post to listen to audio]

You can also listen to and/or download the whole session at Daytrotter.

ps. I’d also recommend tracking down Spiderbags’ 2007 album from which the original song comes from, A Celebration of Hunger. They’re from Chapel Hill so they’ve got a whiskey-soaked greatness about them. Okay, that didn’t make much sense as Archers of Loaf and Ben Folds Five don’t fit that mold but Southern Culture on the Skids, Flat Duo Jets and Spiderbags sure do. So, if you like the latter bands or bands of the Bloodshot vein, you’ll love these guys.

Postcard front and back for a semi-annual night of music at Elysium.

Stockholm Syndrome is a night of Swedish music and so I enjoyed making that side in the colors of Sweden using the backdrop of legal paper. Scribbling followed — naturally — and the heart candies seemed like the perfect finishing touch. Almost cute.

The blueprint was an esoteric way to explain what kind of music to expect, this kind of electronic rock — like M.I.A., Bloc Party, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, LCD Soundsystem, Le Tigre. I can only hope that Pulp’s “Common People” makes an appearance because I think that brings the dance like nothing else, and I say that as someone who has a very high dance tolerance.

For Stockholm Syndrome, the title font is FG Starlet. For pda, the body font was Flux Architect and the title font was Oil (created by Typo5).