Savath & Savalas “Apropa’t”

Press sheets from an art direction & design project for WARP Records recording artist Savath & Savalas. Recorded in Spain, I wanted to portray Maya Hayak’s photography within an architectural motif that illustrated the country’s rich history of accommodating external influences.

Initially I specified a cream stock but when it became difficult to obtain WARP was gracious enough to let me use a 5th color flood. And provide me with press sheets! The quality of European music packaging is such a huge contrast to what is done in the States where digital press results near color copy quality.

Triple Five Soul 2004 – 2008

For eight seasons, between 2004 and 2008, I was responsible, with Ben Velez and the team in NYC, for the content development and design of the Triple Five Soul website. Initially the site simply presented campaign imagery and lookbooks but it quickly grew to include viewer submitted imagery (Global Soul Project), a Japanese sister site and social network presence on MySpace and YouTube.

East Dev Music Packaging & Websites

Art direction and design for the first 13 releases of a music imprint I cofounded. My partners and I wanted the packaging to obviously reflect the individual artist projects but also feel like an East Dev release. The lack of realistic budgets also helped dictate the look which often ended up being illustrated.

East Dev websites

Various iterations of websites for Eastern Developments. As we released music the sites because increasingly neutral to emphasize packaging and photography.

UCLA interactions

Logo and masthead for the UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies.

East Dev Catalog 2004

In all honesty I have forgotten why this catalog was made. We may have been between distributors and needed an item to bring in to meetings. The cover is silk screened on card stock and the interior is black on newsprint, 5 inches by 8 inches, as I recall, french fold with a clip binding. Low rent style as usual for a struggling music label failing to transition itself into the digital era.

At this point in the life of the label I started nudging the typography away from the Akidenz / Glypha dynamic duo to experimenting with system font friendly combinations since I foresaw more of our communications, if we were to survive, happening digitally.

Prefuse73.com, i20 Machine Funk Version

It actually seems dumb, a half decade later, but the site was supposed to mimic the production techniques of Prefuse 73. Digital, yes, but with an analogue intention, as if Chep Nuñez had an MPC but did not know how to erase. Or if the Latin Rascals and Lars Von Trier were somehow bonded together in creative matrimony. Regardless, no erasing took place in the design of this website, for better or for worse.