New Pete Yorn record = heavy, heavy rotation.

via my iTunes - tracked by last.fm

1. Pete Yorn (46)
2. Radiohead (38)
3. The Byrds (20)
4. The Black Keys (13)
5. The Postal Service (12)

And 5th Runner-Up:
Black Kids

In 8 days, I’ll have been married 2 months. Bananas. So in honor of that (plus I’ve been crazy-busy so I’m just now getting around to it…), I thought I’d show all the design stuff I put together for our wedding. And since we were on a super-budget, I think it’s a pretty good example of having some unique invites that were on the cheap. Plus, as the age-old marketing addege goes, “If you can’t sell yourself, you shouldn’t sell anything.” Since I’ve got a job and won’t need a resume in the foreseeable future, a wedding invite is as close as I’ll get. So here we go…

First came the Save the Date. 4×6 postcard, 14 pt. matte cardstock. Picture of me and the hot lady courtesy of photo guru Sean Lyon.

Next came the actual invite. I used side-open vellum envelopes and bought some long labels for addresses. The invite itself was two parts - a dark grey top-fold 14pt. matte outer card that had the same pic for the Save the Date printed real faint on the front and folded down to 9.5×4. On the inside was mounted a 9×3.5 14pt. matte card with the invite content. Included with that was 3×5 RSVP postcard, and reminder card about our wedding website.

And then came the actual wedding program. I’ve never been a huge fan of real complex, lengthy programs with bows and whistles, plus at this point we were hitting the ceiling of our budget, so I went for simple. I kept with the theme of the overly-horizontal (is that even a real adjective? Doubtful.) print pieces,  and designed a 11×4.25 14pt gloss card and compressed all the content to fit on the front. On the back I put the verse Cheyenne put at the end of our engagement slideshow, and since had become very meaningful to us.

And finally our wedding favors. For the 6 months Ashley and I were engaged, I gave her a CD every month to count down the days until we got hitched. She picked some of her favorite songs off of those, I added a few of my own and we threw in some of the songs from the wedding to compile our potentially-cheesy mixtape parting gift.  I orderd some recycled CD sleeves and had a rubberstamp made with our name and wedding date. We added in an insert with tracklist and a guest thank you note. And its the jam. If you want one, I have a few leftovers, so let me know and I’ll send one your way.

And here’s a little bit of the why. I decided pretty early on that I wanted to use some unique typefaces and have those show up throughout all the print work. I really liked the script Ray LaMontagne used for his new album, plus a track from that record, ‘You Are the Best Thing’, was our first dance song, so that’s where the Sloop Script came from.

Next, I wanted a really wide format, slab serif-esque font for the date, so I settled on Hellenic Wide. And for the secondary text, whether on the invite or program or track titles, I used Media Gothic, a nice chunky fixed-width font. For all the print pieces, I used online vendors to save money. None of the longer pieces were stock sizes, so I had to order larger sizes and request a special trim size.

So there it is.Happy wedding to me.

Sweet pics courtesy of the supremely-talented Cheyenne Schultz.

A little late this week. My apologies. Though your care meter doesn’t seem to hitting too high at this point.

via my iTunes - tracked by last.fm

1. The Autumn Film (22)
2. TV On the Radio (20)
3. Old 97’s (19)
4. Okkervil River (12)
5. Vampire Weekend (10)

And 5th Runner-Up:
Phoenix

As many people know, ‘LOST’ is addicting. Really addicting. Like heroin addicting. My old roommate and I watched the show religiously after spending a months catching up on the past seasons. And like many, we are eagerly awaiting the final season to begin this January. So to help hold you over until we find out if the island blew to smithereens, here’s a few a clips from the all-time bad dream of bad dreams - if ‘LOST’ had been part of my childhood Friday nights - a 90’s family sitcom, snuggly tucked right between ‘Perfect Strangers’ and ‘Hanging With Mr. Cooper’ on TGIF.

And just for good measure, here’s what would have happened had ‘LOST’ not been the brainchild of J.J. Abrams, but that of one Richard Dean Anderson.

Here’s a new little part of my blog I’m gonna start adding in - some background on the hows and whys of the design work I do.

The UPS man stopped by today and dropped off a couple thousand presents for us - the new Elevation Worship record has arrived.

One of my favorite things to design is album artwork - and this was no exception. One of the first things I ever designed was album artwork for my pretend band with I was in middle school (what’s that? yes, our name was Dayspring. Yes we would have melted your face off with our rock n’ roll if any of us could have really played instruments.) While the band thing never really worked out, I have been designing records since then… some of them were better than others, and some were designed in Microsoft Paint. Here’s a few of the early offerings - circa 2001-2002.

Yeah, with a little self-assessment, I’d say I’ve come a long way. But then again, the guys who were in these bands would probably say the same thing about the music they’re writing now.

As far as this current record goes, I worked real close with Mack Brock on what the Worship guys wanted to convey through the album. And first of all, it’s a lot easier to design inspired artwork when the music is great - and hats off to the guys for putting together an amazing worship experience with these new songs. But this album is different from the previous album, We Are Alive, in that the songs are more present than active. What does that even mean, you say? To me, from a purely outside perspective, many of the songs on We Are Alive were declarations of movement, God empowering His people to take a city in His name. Here’s a few examples from the lyrics:

We were bought, we were bought with love / So we walk, we walk in love / You’re calling us out of ourselves / To love a world that’s broken down / So we walk in love
(from “Walk in Love”)

This revolution now it’s starting / And running through the streets / And pouring through the city / Redemption’s calling / Calling us to come alive / Our hearts on fire / For the people in our lives / We won’t burn out, we won’t stop till / This city knows who You are
(from “This City”)

And once I wrapped my mind around this concept, I wanted the artwork for that record to have the same sort of movement - a crowd of people rushing towards the unknown, without hesitation, filling the streets of their city.

But for this newest record, the songs had a decidedly different tone. Not in the sense that they are more passive, but they seem more reactionary to work that has already been done. These are songs of thanksgiving and praise, and songs that serve as reminders of God’s unchanging faithfulness throughout difficult times. Here’s some lyrics:

Grow our faith Lord / When our eyes can’t see / That You don’t change Lord / You will ever be / All glory and honor and praise / To the King who forever reigns / Holy, You are holy / Worthy, You are worthy
(from “You Are Holy”)

Jesus, we confess / We were lost in brokenness / Til You came and conquered death / For love / You sent Your son to die / For the broken and the tired / And You healed our lives / With our hands raised high / And our hearts a burning fire / We’ll give our lives / To dwell in Your love
(from “The Broken and The Tired”)

When the waters rise / My hope is sure / When life falls apart / I stand secure / When my way is dark / Your light breaks through / When i don’t feel you near / Your word is true / Jesus Your love surrounds me  / You’re holding my life / Holding my life / The Lord is my rock / And I won’t be afraid / I wont be afraid / You’re with me
(from “The Lord Is My Rock”)

So for this record’s artwork, I wanted to base it on this thought: What is harder? To believe in a loving God in spite of life’s turmoil, or to go through life’s turmoil without believing in an loving God. To convey this, I wanted to show anonymous people in an anonymous city, going through daily lives, and give the viewer the perspective of a God who surrounds us, who loves us, and hold’s His people in His protecting providing hand. I wanted a visual representation of Emmanuel - a Hebrew word meaning ‘God with us.’ Here’s the artwork:
CD outside packaging (front, back):

CD inside:

Insert:

(click for a larger version…)

And just for kicks, here are two cover options that hit the cutting room floor:

Mark-Paul Gosselaar… er, I mean Zack Morris was on the Jimmy Fallon Show last night, complete with a rousing revival of ‘Friends Forever’ with The Roots. And yes, it is just as amazing as it sounds. Watch it below. All this just in time for the annual summer re-runs on TBS of the gangs trip to the Malibu Sands Beach Club.

Stop motion animation has always amazed me. Maybe because the things I make are almost always in 2D - whether its print or web or a t-shirt or whatever. Or maybe it was because when I was a kid I loved those videos on Sesame Street with the Teeny Little Super Guy. You know, the guy who lived on the cup? You know what I’m talking about. At any rate, I’ve noticed a growing trend in the motion graphics world - people want to spend a ridiculous amount of time taking pictures of scenes, frame by frame, rather than just animating digitally. Man, technology just can’t catch a break. I smell another mutiny brewing. But the results are stunning, both in breadth and detail. Here are a few of my recent favorites.

Sorry I’m Late by Tomas Mankovsky
A mounted camera on the ceiling. And some guys dressed up in a horse costume. Now you’re intrigued.

Oren Lavie - Her Morning Elegance
This one made the rounds a while and has over 5 million views on YouTube. Hope that’s enough reward reaping for the amount of time it took to make this.

This Is Where We Live
A city made of books. Unfortunately for the animators, it’s a insanely bustling city.

Plan B - No Good
The music is pretty awful, but it’s worth watching just long enough to be perplexed that this guy sang in stop motion. Crazy.

Firekites - Autumn Story
Better music. A bunch of chalk dust.

The Wolf and The Pig
1300 printed photos. One busy Chinese guy.

Wedding Invitation
Corey and Rachel made the most ambitious wedding invitation ever.

via my iTunes - tracked by last.fm

1. Black Rebel Motorcycle Club (28)
2. Kings of Leon (21)
3. Third Eye Blind (18)
4. Bon Iver (15)
5. Rogue Wave (13)

And 5th Runner-Up:
The Autumn Film

I don’t have Rock Band. I’ve always been more of a Guitar Hero man. But who am I kidding, I’m barely qualified for that category considering I can only play 3 songs on Hard. But after watching the redonculous preview for The Beatles Rock Band game, I’m thinking about branching out - if for nothing else but watching a few more of these incredible clips of an animated Fab 4. While it’s not a world I’m totally familiar with, I doubt words like ‘lush, inspired and beautiful’ come to mind when you watch a preview for a video game. That’s all about to change. Watch it.

Apparently all that’s fancy and shiny in music (I’m looking at you, CD) is experiencing a bit of a rock n’ roll backlash. And from a guy who loves buying actual CDs with actual cases and actual artwork, it’s a bit of a buzzkill. First came the vinyl revival. All the cool kids starting putting out their albums on 7 in. and I had to go digging through the garage to find my dad’s old hi-fi. Then came the tech-age, and bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails started releasing albums exclusively online. And now, like a dark horse underdog, the CD has a new, yet very familar, opponent - the cassette.

That’s right kids - break out the jamboxes. The cassette is back. Now granted it’s not hitting it’s mainstream stride yet - thus far only indie rockers Deerhunter and Dirty Projectors have decided to release cassette versions of their new albums - but mark my words, tape decks are gonna be the new moustache. Dirty, ugly and awkwardly awesome. Just ask Brad Pitt.

But that’s not all folks. In a controversial move, Cheap Trick (of “I Want You to Want Me” fame…) is releasing their newest album, The Latest, on… wait for it… 8-track.

I’m gonna guess they probably swung a little too far with this one. But if it catches on, the CD better sleep with one eye open. The Laser Disc can’t be far behind.