New release…

Flipping back to the positive, a new release for Ground Level means another piece of design for music goes out to the ether today too. This time round its Joe C with the track ‘Kamikaze’ and a remix from label boss Andy McAllister, which you can listen to (and buy… *coughs*) here.

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Not in use…

Recently, the picto-brain offered to create the artwork for the talented Jo Lewis’ next release. After a conversation over a beverage or two, armed with the titles, a little insight in to the stories behind the songs and a page of notes on appropriate colours, moods and themes, the ‘brain set to work whilst listening to the ep.

The concept artwork was delivered, and although Jo liked the layered image, she has opted for a more traditional cover with a striking self portrait.

You can’t win them all, so the saying goes, and it was an interesting creative project none the less.

Check out Jo’s music here and keep an eye on her facebook page for updates on the forthcoming ep.

 

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design or art?…

Happy Friday folks, here’s a little question for a sunny evening:

If the typographical element is removed from album sleeve design/single cover design, can the remainder be considered art?

Discuss!

 

Below are a few pieces of design for music from the picto-brain with the text removed or cropped away…

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floating pyramids…

A casual hour long composite piece, made as an example for a workshop creating fantasy worlds to learn Photoshop techniques. The picto-brain has been reading about Egypt recently and seems to have influenced this image a little… Nice.

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if I had done this for real I’d be in trouble…

I have a few friends who are graffiti artists and in recent conversations, I was informed of some of the ‘etiquette’ of the art form. Some of these rules included: a- to not spray near an established artists work to gain kudos from their piece, and b- to not cover over another piece of work if it still looks reasonably fresh, just to get a good location.

Well…

In defence of the picto-brain, it was done digitally – no actual art was harmed in the creation of a piece of design.

A brief required an image of a wall by a road… stock image sites had been trawled with no luck… Then I remembered a photo I took just off Brick Lane… with a little photoshop magic it was the perfect wall…

I really like this piece by Guy Denning and ‘painting’ it out felt quite wrong but, its a great wall and at least it wasn’t real. The finished piece of design is for a music download (hence the square crop) and can’t be revealed until the tracks go public – keep your ears and eyes open people.

Here’s the before and after – sorry Guy:

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earthquake…

Another piece of work for Fisso & Spark. This weighty track needed an appropriate image to fit it, so the picto-brain wrangled pixels to make this composite:

 

Featuring remixes by Drumattic Twins and Sasha Khan, check it out on the Ground Level label blog [here]

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1623: Shakespeare time…

The 1623 theatre company provide theatre performances, learning workshops, award-winning participatory activities and inspirational training courses all formed from or inspired by the works of Shakespeare. They’re currently conducting a research-and-development project that engages people creatively with King Lear in the context of dementia, a part of which is an open submission asking for creative responses to the quote ‘Let me not be mad’. [details here – closes 20th Sept!]

Here is the pictographik submission, a photoshop composite that hopefully echoes the tone of the phrase. (…maybe?!) Once the image is uploaded to their site, a link will be added.

The original stock photos (below) came from sxc and were uploaded by user Leroys, check out his awesome detailed images here. The type is a combination of Times New Roman and Fusion.

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