Working Together
Hey Friends
Hope everyone is doing well. I am writing this newsletter from my girlfriend's salon because I'm finally getting a haircut lol. This week has been pretty hard cuz I had to work all week while I was sick. That being said we got through it and I am feeling much better!
The GOAT Reid Miles
I am working on this new video about the niches in graphic design, once I got to the album art section I had to include my boy Reid Miles.
This got me into a wormhole of diving deeper into one of my favorite design styles of all time, the "Reid Miles Era Blue Note Album Covers" if you haven't seen them before I highly suggest checking out this blue note timeline.
They are just so ahead of their time and I think it paved the way for a lot of the ways album art lays out typography today, as well as the gradient map style duotone colors we see in countless modern album arts or poster designs.
I wish I could go back in time and see the process of some of these timeless album covers being created back in the day. At the very least I can still constantly be inspired though and this was the backbone inspiration for a series I did a while back called Black Note.
Collab
Above is the still version of a recent Blues Legends poster I worked on. If you like how it looks now, imagine it with some cool motion. (It won't let me include a video lol).
Anyway, I worked on a dope motion version of this poster as a collab with Mat Voyce. Mat is such a talented motion designer, and the stuff he does with typography is so dope.
I was stoked when he DM me one day asking to collab and after lagging on him hard (sorry Mat) we finally got it done. The full fledge motion version should be going live on IG in a few days.
I forgot how fun it is to work on collabs with other people. Working as a solo freelancer it can be pretty isolating sometimes and lots of the projects I work on don't have other creatives in the process. Collabs can also be strange when each designer has a similar style because it can get hard to divide the workflow.
Lucky for this one I am shit at motion design and Mat is a beast so everything went smoothly. All I had to do was create this layout and send it over to him to do his magic.
If you have any friends who do other types of art or design than you I highly recommend trying to find some way you can collaborate. It's super fun along the process and when the final product turns out great it feels much more rewarding than just working on something by yourself all day.
Design Breakdown
You guys seemed to really like the last design breakdown I did on Patreon for the Howlin Wolf poster so I decided to keep it going.
These videos are fun to make and I think a great way to give more content to all the amazing supporters on Patreon. If you are curious what it's all about, you can go sign up for my Patreon, get access to a bunch of exclusive content/videos, and support ya boy for a few bucks a month!
Stuff I currently like and stuff I'm looking forward to!
Tweet of the week below
Closing Thoughts
Resit the urge to take your attention off what matters most.
Much Love, Glue.
Weekly Wrap Up
New Portfolio Review Video
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