Among Waves

Available now, a new album from Orca Life, featuring artwork by me:




In addition to the album artwork, I also filmed and directed a music video for a track off the album, "Fall In":
 

Both the album artwork and video are made from a series of video experiments I shot, applied over photographs/video shot by Chris Roberts (Orca Life himself) and edited together. Since Photoshop and After Effects have the same layer mode options, I tried to treat the video exactly as I did the artwork, which for an experiment I think turned out pretty well.
Also featured on the J-Card interior is the "Jesse" logo that I created for Orca Life.
Watch the video, listen to and buy the album. Enjoy.

Recent Developments

Hey there, I don't update this as often as I'd like but here's what I've been up to:

Most recently I created a new identity for Chris Roberts' music pseudonym, Orca Life:

I drew this in pencil first, inked it with a brush pen, and then edited it in Photoshop. The stages can be seen on my Tumblr.

Before that, I laid out the artwork for Rachel Thomasin's new album out on Otherworldly Mystics. Rachel provided the base artwork herself, but I was responsible for the layout and copy for the cover/interior as well as the labels on the tapes and the color choices.

And lastly, some GIFs from a series I'm calling Animals In Shirts; if I'm lucky they'll have me reboot Shirt Tales...

  

I have more projects in the works but that's all there is to show for now.

Book One Press

Book One has been making its rounds on the internet, here's just a snippet of the reviews:

From Decoder:

"Pulling seventeen tracks of spaced, largely synth-focused sounds, Book One is a Philip K. Dick- and Arthur C. Clarke-inspired drift featuring sci-fi art that’d look ideal on your shelf of thrift store paperbacks."

From Portals:

"The beautifully designed Book One features a vibrant, pulp-inspired album cover lifted straight from your favorite sci-fi book club flyer, but the real treasure is what lies behind the pages."

The tape was also featured on the blog Mystic Groove, as well as spoken about in surprising detail within the first 15 min on the latest Tabs Out Cassette Podcast, where they amusingly mispronounce and suggest Bing-ing my name, and even play Matt Marblo's Tetrahominoid track in full!

UPDATE 12-16-13: Tabs Out ranked Book One #46 on their list of Top 200 Tapes of 2013! It's also the #2 compilation on the list!

Plus! A new quote from Ad Hoc:

"The dope ass cover art, which looks like a classic Isaac Asimov novel, sucked me in. The 17 tracks-- all by artists I have never heard word one about-- kept me floating in it’s cosmic realm."

From Impose Magazine:

"The vintage sci-fi book jacket style artwork sets the tone for this unexpected and stylistically varied collection ... One of those things that you see around, forget to listen to, and then get completely lost in."

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And on a semi-unrelated note, here's my favorite review for Transmission so far:

Can't really ask for much more than that ;;)

Otherworldly Mystics - Book One

The Otherworldly Mystics - Book One compilation is now available on limited edition cassette! It’s got 17 tracks by 17 great artists!

For this first compilation, I designed the album art to look like a science fiction novel from the 70s, with the painting being inspired by Frank R. Paul’s work (not 70s, I know).

The cassette itself was supposed to be yellow to go with the yellow on the cover logo but unfortunately we weren’t able to procure yellow cassettes in a reasonable timeframe.

The original painting is 8" x 10", acrylic on canvas board.

Transmission is Here!

After some vague clues and emoticons* Chris Roberts' score for Transmission is finally available on limited edition cassette tape (only 50 copies!) Buy it here!

Each purchase comes with a tape, immediate download of the album, and exclusive access to the film before its festival premiere dates!

You can even receive a free postcard personalized by me with your order while supplies last.

And here's a fun fact: this is the first Otherworldy Mystics tape that was completely designed by me, as I not only made all of the packaging design (made to look like a prop within the world of the film) but I also designed the company logo.

* (88[| + ^..^> + [O..] = [•-•]

Birthday and Transmission News

I have some exciting news regarding my film, Transmission! Transmission has been accepted into the KLIK! Amsterdam Animation Festival, which runs from November 7 to 11 in Amsterdam. I'll have more info on exact screening dates and times when the info comes to me.

In addition, heres a peek at something Chris Roberts and I have been working on at Otherworldly Mystics:

Sadly, I can't give away too much about this one for now, so stay tuned!

And lastly, yesterday was my birthday so I drew myself a picture involving one of my favorite films: Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky.

"YOU ARE ALL FREE NOW!!!"

New Tapes

As mentioned prior, two new tapes from Otherworldly Mystics are in!

My hand in each one differs a bit. Like the last two, these tapes feature my OM logo design and general layout, but are final designed by other people. So, more of an art directer than graphic designer in this case.

For Infinite Third's tape there was an original layout which I then helped re-tool, albeit roughly, but the final placement is more/less from my input. As for the Cloud Seeding tape, I honestly didn't see it till it was finished because I was busy by that point, but it sure came out pretty.

Hopefully there will be more exciting news in the coming month. Now back to thesis work for me!

They're Here!

After a couple of months of waiting, the first tapes from Otherworldly Mystics are now available and ready for order!

When Chris (the label owner) sent me these photos tonight I got super excited. I'm really proud of the OM logo I designed and I think it looks really great and fitting on these packages. In addition to the logo design, I also assisted in the overall packaging format. While different artists are in control of each albums' artwork and package design, I've supervised the general layout to make sure each Otherworldly Mystics release has a semi-uniform layout.

Both Teeel's Amulet and Teams' Catch Pool EP are available to order now (in limited quantities), with more tapes from other artists on the way. Seriously, they're both awesome albums, and the sound quality from the tapes is fantastic!

Otherworldly Mystics

I've designed a logo for Chris Roberts' (Orca Life) new cassette tape label, Otherworldly Mystics. Because it's a tape label, I purposefully went for an 80s electronic company look, which ended up looking like the logo for a menacing corporation from a sci-fi film. But it ended up working out perfectly thanks to the synthesized sounds of the bands releasing through the label.

The label's first release, Teeel's awesome album, Amulet, is now available for pre-order and limited to just 100 copies, so act fast!

And be sure to follow Otherworldly Mystics on Tumblr and Facebook ;)