‘They Had Faces Then’ by In Silent Movies
March 12, 2010 // Design + Kitsune Noir + Music + Work





I haven’t shared any of my personal work in a while so I thought I’d show you this album art I created about a month ago. It was for a band called In Silent Movies, a little band from Ohio that wrote me out of the blue and asked if I’d be interested in creating artwork for their album. I took a listen to their MySpace page, liked what I heard, and decided to take on the project.

They liked the style I already had and let me go in any direction I wanted. Listening to their songs there was definitely a nautical feeling to it that I wanted to play up. Overall I went with some older images of captains and boat crashes and women falling off of cliffs. Just looking at the tracklist you can see that I was playing with certain ideas, so you get a good sense of what you’re getting into musically.

I also tried to tie things together with color, so you have this big splashes of red that catch your eye on each image. For the title I just wrote out the name and surprisingly it turned out pretty well. Funny enough I cropped out the guys face before I knew the name of the album, which is They Had Faces Then. It was a happy accident that was clearly meant to be.

I’d suggest you take a listen to their music and if you like what you hear buy their CD and get some of my art at the same time (shameless plug).

Bobby

KN Work // Aquarium Drunkard Redesign
November 23, 2009 // Blogs + Redesign + Work

A couple months ago I got an email from Justin Gage, creator of the Los Angeles music blog Aquarium Drunkard asking me if I’d be interested in helping his site out with a redesign. I had been a fan of his blog for years now, so I was totally excited that he asked me to help him.

Checking out his old blog, which I failed to take a screen cap of to show the before and after, it was kind of a mess. First off it was extremely dark, using prmarily blacks, browns and golds. Second all of the content was contained in one tiny main column and it was all pushed to the left side, only 20px left of the edge of the browser. To say it felt cramped would be an understatement. My idea for the site was to lighten everything up, increasing font sizes, giving the site brighter colors and making it feel more welcome in every way possible.

My inspiration for the site was old bars, as Justin and I are both expert beer drinkers. The difficult part was not making it too campy or too tongue in cheek, with bottles of booze or drink rings. I went through several versions, you can see earlier versions under the cut, but it wasn’t until I created the background pattern that I found my direction. I decided to go with a blue and creme color palette with accents of black. I also wanted to make things a little gritty cuz that’s how a bar should feel and I like how it looks.

Overall I’m really happy with how it turned out. As with all my projects I really try to focus on simplicity, usability and legibility. Making it snazzy looking is just a perk of the job. Big thanks to my buddy Justin for reaching out to me on this project, I had a blast doing it.

Check under the cut for more early versions of the site.

Continue reading KN Work // Aquarium Drunkard Redesign…

KN Work // A Continuous Lean Redesigned
July 27, 2009 // Blogs + Clothing + Design + Kitsune Noir + Work

Good Monday morning everyone! I thought I’d start off the day with a little announcement of a project that I worked on that went live over the weekend. Some of you might be familiar with A Continuous Lean, a men’s fashion and lifestyle blog run by Michael Williams in New York. I’ve been a fan of ACL for quite a while now, I first mentioned him last June, and since then we’ve been on each others internet radar.

A couple months ago Michael wrote me asking me if I’d be interested in redesigning his site, and I totally jumped at the chance. He told me that he liked the general layout of Kitsune Noir, how it was well organized and easy to navigate, and that he wanted something similar without being a total copy. He also wanted things to be kept rather simple and uncluttered.

A Continuous Lean was previously using the standard Wordpress.com template, so there was little to no styling around the blog. So I decided to stick with the basics of black, white, cream and orange. The orange was inspired by the Denver Broncos orange, which I think gives it a nice kick. I also didn’t want the few images used to be boring so I threw textures onto a number of items, giving them a slight feel of age and a nod to the fashion content on the site.

As a point of reference, the Wordpress theme used was called Magatheme, which looked like this before I completely ripped the whole thing apart. I left very few elements of the original design intact, but it was a theme that was well put together and made it easier to customize.

I have to get a major shout out to my old friend Adam Farris my tech guy. While I can design and fiddle around with HTML and CSS alright on my own, Adam is my tech guru who works absolute magic behind the scenes. Without his tech wizardry ACL and Kitsune Noir would not have seen the light of day.

Be sure to check out A Continuous Lean and give Michael some love!

Bobby

KN Work // Skingraft Redesign and Live Improve Movie Project Poster
May 20, 2009 // Clothing + Design + Films + Los Angeles + Redesign + Work

Since I’m starting to do more freelance work I thought I’d start posting more of the projects I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. The first was a logo redesign for my friends fashion label, Skingraft, a brand that makes contemporary feeling clothes that are Victorian-era inspired, and they also create a lot of leather pieces as well.

The name alone connotates some not so cute imagery, so I went with a really simple but unique font that would contrast well with their harder edged look. They were also looking for some sort of crest or mark as well, so we took inspiration from all of the mounts on the walls of their studio and created a stylized ‘S’ inside of a mount. It’s a bit gothic, a bit old fashioned, and definitely bold.

The poster above was created for the Live Improv Movie Project, a project my friend Ari is a part of. Basically, the old poster was desperate for an update, so I decided to go with an old fashioned, sort of 70’s French cinema feel, or at least that was my inspiration. I figured simple and bold was the best way to go, I figured I’d stop and look to see what this poster was about.

I’ll try to post updates more frequently if you guys are interested.

Bobby

The Mustache March at SXSW
March 19, 2009 // Design + Illustration + Work

If you are or were at South by Southwest this last week you might have noticed a few people handing out some cards with some mustaches glued to them… well those were homies from Causecast. We’re doing a Mustache March at 4:30 on the Southeast corner of 6th and and Brazo, so bring your mustache (real or fake) and your cause and let people know what you care about.

The postcards were initally drawn by my buddy Garrett Vander Leun and then I colored over them to give them their creepy, surreal look. Did anyone see these around town?

Bobby