Dimensional Design Project (Work In Progress)

The design screened onto canvas

My screen printing setup consists of a light taped
 to the toilet paper holder in my bathroom.

Design exposed into the screen. Also pictured: my girlfriend's cat being a creep.

This was an assignment for my dimensional design class. We had to make a bag for the Fourth of July. We were free to employ our own concept and being that the holiday isn’t so much an environmentally friendly one I wanted to address that in my concept, that being to bring a message to encourage people to “Have a green fourth of July”.

Needless to say I ran into problems getting parts of the design to come through clearly, I think the ink i mixed has either been to thick or too thin, blotting up or not printing as crisp as I would have wanted but I intend to revise this before the quarter is over and have images up of the complete bag as well.

Visit my tumblr for other art related things: redntoothnclaw.tumblr.com/

Heccra Illustration

Within recent years I've fallen out of illustration, pretty much completely. It's a sad aspect of my life, one that, confessionally, can be attributed to a mixture of built up anxiety and laziness... but mostly laziness. Drawing used to be one of my favorite things to do; throughout my years in high school I spent much of my time drawing, either at home or in class, doodling and sketching out ideas, either in my sketchbook or on my classwork and notes. While that may not seem like the most appropriate use of my time for me it was a healthy hobby, one that I have fallen out of and unhealthily began dwelling on daily but never actually attending to.

Instead, music, or rather that of the avant-garde and experimental persuasion, that of noise has become the focus of much of my time. Along with my friend, Brian Sopher and more recently, Andrew Lake we created music under the name Hintergrund, a project I have documented here in a number of posts which I have created artwork and designed the packaging for.

Realizing my love for music and visual art, namely illustrative, I noticed that the two go perfectly together because what is music without the accompany of a visual element, an aesthetic, something visually tangible? Getting to the point, I approached Heccra, a one-man experimental post-hardcore project in which I have written reviews for and more recently conducted an interview with over at inb4track, the music blog I write for. I offered that I draw a design up for t-shirts, the result being the above image.

To put everything into context without too much unimportant inside speak, Heccra's sound is distinctive in that the vocals sometimes feature this pitch-shift which make them sound, like that of a chipmunk. Its a strange but intriguing production choice, one that I feel embodies the sound of the project quite well and as such, I thought I would touch on that in my illustration which is that of a cartoonish chipmunk looking rad in a cali-flip style hat, the name "Heccra" embroidered on the bottom of the bill. I think it turned out pretty dece.

inb4track Logo / Banner

I recently designed a logo / banner for inb4track, a music review blog about independent /mu/sicians that I and a mess of other people write for. I thought it would be nice if the site had a logo of it's own so I created one. Once again going off of the triangulated Andy Gilmore inspired theme, I designed the type around a triangular pattern. 

As for the design, the logo is pretty much self explanatory. The name of the blog plays off of the 'inb4' meme, a popular internet meme used on internet forums that generally refers to a person posting a reply, a thread, or a statement 'before' another user post an obvious and often times critical response. 'Inb4' is followed by a single word (i.e. 'track') or a short phrase that will indefinitely appear in the topic.

The 'b4' was substituted with a set of arrows that doubles as the rewind button on a cassette or CD player. I experimented with multiple color pallets and variations in placement of color beside color with the end result ultimately coming down to the combination you see above. All of the colors are slightly dulled to what I feel is colorful and fun without being gender biased or appealing on a male or female basis. In other words I feel like this is a logo that works in the context of what the blog is about.

Check out the page and let me know what you think of the design: inb4track.wordpress.com

Some recent reviews I wrote: Vasko Enough Enough, Mont Saint Michel, Studying / Carved Our Names In Snow split

On Repeat: Mont Saint Michel - Sediment, Dementia & Hope Trails - Parts of the Sea I & II, Caust - Page Turner, Studying / Carved Our Names In Snow split