As many of you know I moved back to my home state a little less than a year and a half ago. I enjoyed Rhode Island and my time there, but there is something that calls you back home. When I arrived on familiar soil I thought I would write some music for the occasion. Well, things got busy and I never got farther than shooting some pertinent photos and designing the album cover. Luckly the cover is good enough to be included in my portfolio.

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Now that I see it again, maybe I will start writing some ambient stuff to go with the cover. The concept and design is almost too good to waste. Hmmm… might be my next music project.

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I don’t remember exactly what happened with the original designer, but at one point Cindy from TastyFresh approached me and asked if I would be interested in designing the flyers for the Cornerstone DanceBarn. I jumped at the chance and went to work with vigor. As always I was in my orange/yellow color scheme :

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Unfortunately these designs never were used because the original designer got his/her ducks in a row and sent the final design. But, in the end, I still got a great piece for my portfolio.

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Over the last 5 years I have had the privilage of releasing 3 albums through Cardamar in Holland. Marco also gave me the opportunity to design my own covers for the CDs.

The first release was “Of Beauty & Mystery”. Since I had been giving it out for a few months before it was picked up by Cardamar I had an indie cover and an official release cover. Below are both :

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The official cover shown below features my own photography as well. I took the picture one morning as the fog was rolling across the field behind my church. Then a few clips and overlaps and we have a grand chillout cover.

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Then about a month later I gathered the leftover tracks from “Of Beauty & Mystery” and asked Marco what he thought of doing a free MP3 release as a mini-album. He liked the idea so I titled it “Itinerary” and pulled together a quick design. I like the hanging sign as the title box. My wife says she likes the cover for Itinerary a lot.

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Then after a bit of a pause, I started writing music once again. From that effort came a secondary project. After a few months of name changes and figuring out what tracks to include, Marco and I released “In Medias Res”. For this design I had my friend Shelley Beber (now Kinder) take artist photos of me. We went to a park one afternoon and did a bunch of different poses. Because of this the design is very photo based with some overlay of grunge/outdoor elements. I like the design, but I still don’t know if it works with the music.

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After the release of IMR, because my creative brain does strange things, I didn’t write music for nearly a year. I was involved in a lot at my church and my music arrangement software kind of went corrupt on me so my music just went below ground. But slowly I started messing around again and recently released an online MP3 album called “Please, Remain Calm” (which you can download here). I released one track every saturday for 8 weeks and included hi-res artwork with each download. Here is the cover of PRC :

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So, that is the design story of my music so far. I plan on releasing a 4 track drum&bass EP in the next few months, but it doesn’t have much of a title yet, let alone a cover design. Expect to see it posted here when I am done.

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As I was posting the artwork for the new album, I realized I have quite a few designs for Brian Cooney’s musical projects over the years.
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Below are the pictures for one of the CDs that I designed for him. I do have the original files for the design, but at some point I must have put together the jewel case and taken a picture. I love the colors and the painted feel to the project.

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And don’t forget the inside picture. I don’t think he chose to use the worshipping man in the final, but it was my personal favorite.

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And then a few months later he had me work on another music construct of his. Brian got together with a few other guys and formed (reformed) Deeper Still. They made some amazing music together and produced one album called “A day like today”. Below is one version for the cover of that album.

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I am sure I will find other Cooney projects in my collection. And I am pretty sure the Born project will not be my last one to work on with him either.

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I just finished a project for Brian Cooney. These 2 designs were not chosen for the final cover, but I still like them so I thought I would show you.

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When I started the project, Brian said he wanted minimal and lots of white, so the above one is what I initially presented him. The theme kind of changed over the course of the project so this is not anywhere close to the final.

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After coming back from vacation in Florida, Brian presented me with a photo of destruction that he wanted to use for the cover. He wanted a look of hope amidst the chaos. So, I took the picture and did some Z tricks to it and came up with the above image. He loved it, but in the end still decided to use the original photo.

I will wait until the release date of the CD before posting the final CD design here. Check back in a few weeks and I will show you.
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