combo

PROJECT

Design the artwork for a new album and associated poster, web, social media graphics, and handle photography and videography of their live show.

BACKGROUND

Brass Elephant is a rock band based in St. Paul, MN. The lead guitarist, Bleem, is a friend and he reached out to see if I’d be interested in designing the CD jacket for their new album. I was thrilled and I quickly discovered they needed more than just a CD jacket. They also needed a design for the disc itself, a poster for the album release party, an update to their Bandcamp site, and also graphics to announce the album release party on social media.

Bleem and his bandmates have been busy in the Twin Cities music scene for decades, having released albums with his previous band Propeller. He’s also famous for rocking out on Jimmy Page’s long-lost “Black Beauty” guitar before reuniting it with the Led Zeppelin guitar virtuoso. In other words, my client had been to this rodeo before, and he was determined to do everything “the right way” albeit with a tight schedule and even tighter budget.

TOOLS

Adobe Illustrator (CD jacket graphics, poster graphics)
Adobe InDesign (CD jacket, disc, poster, social media)
Adobe Photoshop (photos)
Adobe Lightroom Classic (photos)
Adobe Premiere Pro (video)

PROCESS

Everything started with an abstract painting that Bleem acquired from local artist Laura Bennett. The band wanted the album cover to feature the painting. Beyond that, I asked about the influences for the band and the album and The National and Muse readily came to his mind. I also got to listen to the album and it was great upbeat guitar rock. The album’s working title at the time was “Everything Louder Than Everything Else”, a call-back to Deep Purple.

After researching related bands and album designs, I provided two directions for the overall concept: go very contemporary and clean like a modern art museum piece or tie-in with the painting and more of a retro rock vibe from the music.

I was thrilled when they chose to go in the latter direction. And the album cover is actually a 4-panel CD wallet so I had a back and interior spread to design as well. That’s when I ran into another problem - there was no time to get the band together for me to take photos. Instead I wound up working with the pics the band took on their cell phones during the recording sessions. One of those really stood out to me as a feature for the interior spread as it really evoked that old-school feeling of making a rock album.

The album design evolved as new requests and details trickled in and I worked with the great team at Copycats Media, one of the biggest media production companies in the US who are also right here in the Twin Cities. After reviewing the proof, Copycats also provided the album’s UPC code.

The final album title was “All you need is…” which connects with the album’s optimism and romantic undertones. I chose fonts for the band name, album title, tracks, and details that reflected the album and band’s personality and also reinforced a visual hierarchy. And I repeated them in the other deliverables as appropriate.

Once the album design was finalized, focus shifted to the show poster. Bleem gave me a blank slate and I proposed a design inspired by a photo of him with a rare guitar in a classic rock pose. He loved the idea and we quickly finalized the design. The posters were printed by Trade Press Inc., another great local business, on glossy 80 lbs cover with full bleed.

At the same time, I was updating the band’s Bandcamp and Facebook pages with graphics and info from the new album. I also uploaded the album’s master tracks to Bandcamp along with the appropriate cover art, track titles, credits, and UPC.

I also suggested using a Bandcamp feature to generate one-time-use codes for free album downloads. They could package them with the physical CDs (adhesive label) so buyers get the digital copy for free.

RESULTS

The Brass Elephant page on Facebook announced the availability of the album for preview and purchase on Bandcamp. The album release party and show was also posted as a Facebook event on the band’s page as well as on the venue’s. Posters were distributed at record stores and other businesses around the Twin Cities. The posters also include a QR code that takes people to the album’s first single. The CDs were delivered on time for the band’s album release show with the one-time-use codes for digital copies. And I also posted high quality photos of the show and 1080p video of the entire set to the band’s Facebook page.

Besides Bleem and the band being really happy with how everything looks, they’re also able to track how everything performs - how many plays and purchases on Bandcamp, how much engagement on their Facebook page and event, how many CD sales by UPC, how many poster QR codes were scanned, and how many people viewed the video after the event. Those are some pretty new-school tools for these old-school rockers 😎