From Bureau Strada:

Poster for a heavy metal concert and performance event at Bad Bonn, in collaboration with Nathan Meyer. The aim was to design a poster that was coherent with the event, while subverting common heavy metal clichés. To provide a contrast to the handcrafted feel of the linocut, the Metaballs typeface by Maxitype introduces more geometric forms, subtly referencing the bone motif of the illustration.

The F4 poster was printed in a black only version, and another 50 × 70 cm version is printed in offset silver and black with a matte varnish by Cric Print in Fribourg. The concert was organised by Maxime Barras & Maxime Papaux, under the name Maxi-Maxi.

Field Trip is an interdisciplinary salon and art gallery located in Greensboro, North Carolina. Currently closed to the public, when open hours were still in effect Field Trip provided a work space for the public. On select days of the month, Field Trip would host performances for different artists, local and out-of-town. These events would consist of different artists (who primarily performed noise, harsh noise, or experimental music) and would run through the night. Certain performances would even run for hours, and in a specific case for a full 24 hours.

Field Trip opened in 2022 and remained active until mid-2024. Field Trip plans on reopening in the coming months.

The selected flyers were designed by Austin Sellars and Xylon Otterburn. The flyers mostly stick with Courier for any of the text/information, with 1533 GLC Augereau showing up on the January 8th flyer, and Warbler Italic making an appearance on the February 1st flyer.

Flyer for an electronic/noise show with Zoon and Undude which took place on the 14th of March in Toulouse, at Atelier des Cheminots.

Wow 2 is a live album by Japanese experimental noise rock band Boredoms, produced by John Zorn and released in October 1993 on his Avant Records.

The cover uses Zuzana Licko’s Totally Gothic caps – stretched by roughly 130%, and outlined to make them quite a bit heavier. The colorful stripes around the type are also all outlines of Totally Gothic, I am counting at least 25 stroke applications.

The stroke treatment makes Totally Gothic look a bit like graffiti – an unexpected transformation!

Design by Tomoyo T.L, with typography by Lisa Wells.

[More info on Discogs]

The rounded sans used for the Japanese text on the spine card (a.k.a. obi) is unidentified. [edit: it’s Sūbo, see comments]

Louis Möckel commissioned Sigrid Schmeisser to collaborate on the promotion and design of a vinyl record for their research project: “What acoustic traces do mass-produced items leave along their supply chains, and what ecological impacts do these sounds have?”

Sound behaves differently in air, water, or soil, and different species perceive it uniquely—dolphins, for example, hear frequencies far beyond the human range. These distinctions raise critical questions about how to evaluate the ecological impact of industrial soundscapes.

Sonic Footprints explores the sonic connection between the industrial noise of a plastic toy dolphin’s supply chain and the sensitive acoustic habitats of real dolphins. Through interviews with four scholars, the research examines sound ecology from diverse perspectives: Gianni Pavan, assesses the harm industrial noise inflicts on marine life. Robert Rosenberger, postphenomenologist, investigates how sound data, shaped by human technologies, can reflect subjective biases. Tim Ingold, social anthropologist, redefines ecology by emphasizing the relational dynamics of sonic perception. Salomé Voegelin, sound studies scholar, reframes sound as a primary way of understanding, challenging visual-dominant knowledge systems.

This project reimagines ecology through sound, uncovering the often-overlooked consequences of industrial noise. Accompanying the text are recordings from the toy dolphin’s supply chain. Musicians Inland and SHXCXCHCXSH reinterpreted these soundscapes into compositions that are available on vinyl and online.

Sonic Footprints invites readers and listeners to listen differently, framing sound as a crucial lens for understanding the hidden interconnectedness of ecosystems and industrial processes.

I used Harber (variable) to create the main identity for the project, including a couple of pre-launch videos that introduces the research and project.

The vinyl record and publication are available at SetMargins’.

Photos by Louis Möckel & Sigrid Schmeisser, as well as Annette Behrens (commissioned by SetMargins’).

Sonic Footprints publication (cover)

The project featured in this post can serve as an example of how your possibilities multiply when you are both a graphic and a type designer. Hélène Marian designed the book shown here and as well one of the typefaces used in it.

Chroniques du Bruit (“Chronicle of Noise”) is some sort of documentary of the Parisian scene for noise music and experimental composition in the years 2011 to 2012. It was compiled by author Sarah Benhaïm who herself witnessed the twenty-nine performances, took concert notes, listened to the audience, and chalked down details of the locations, the stage productions, and the gestures combined with the music. Benhaïm is a lecturer at the department for Cultural and Discursive Interactions (ICD) at the University of Tours, France. She specializes in popular music, noise music, and the DIY practices surrounding them.

It is at that point that Hélène Marian picked up with her concept for the graphic design. She starts on the cover with the lettering piece “Bruit” that shows distorted contours and is based on her typeface Brake. Brake is one half of a sans-serif duo, the other half being Starter. Influenced by the letterforms found on car license plates, they represent design alternatives that allow to consciously work on the length of a given line. In Chroniques du Bruit, Brake is used for the gig dates, the dialogues, and the index. Starter & Brake still await their release for the general public.

As a roman companion you see Cardinal, designed by the team of Production Type under the auspices of Jean-Baptiste Levée. The book typography uses Cardinal in three variants of the collection: Classic, Photo, and Fruit. In a DIY attitude that matches the topic, Marian made them all a little noisier: she beefed up the letterforms and drastically reduced the letterspacing and linespacing in all titles, to a point where it might hurt.

Chroniques du Bruit is completed by photographs that artist Steeve Bauras took at the musical events. It also includes a CD with an experimental sound piece by DJ Fusiller constructed from superpositions of recordings of noise music artists. Voilà what you could call a Gesamtkunstwerk.

This ancient-soaked album titled sepr.online.works consists of compositions from the experimental root of electronic music. Some tracks are instrumental improvisations exploring synthesizers and acoustic instruments, including piano, accordion, Ukrainian bandura or prepared mandolin. Other compositions incorporate vocals and interwoven recitations, all in pursuit of intense forms of storytelling. The music stands out for its narrativity, multilayered sound spectrum, diverse range of emotions, and adept maneuvering between ambient, noise and drone genres. It is the debut of an-hoer – the Eastern European band from Poland.

Listen to the album.

[More info on Discogs]

From Discogs:

Daydream Nation was Sonic Youth’s sixth full-length, their first double-LP, and their last for an indie label before signing with Geffen.

Widely considered to be their watershed moment, the album catapulted them into the mainstream and proved that indie bands could enjoy wider commercial success without compromising their artistic vision.

Process on the front, Eckmann-Schrift on the inside and back of the gatefold, and also on the LPs themselves.

From Wikipedia:

The cover for Daydream Nation features the 1983 Gerhard Richter painting Kerze (“Candle”). The back cover art is a similar Richter painting from 1982. The vinyl version’s four sides and the compact disc inner tray contain four symbols each representing one of the members of the band, in an homage to—and parody of—the four symbols from the fourth Led Zeppelin album. The symbols are infinity (∞) for Ranaldo (referencing his 1987 album From Here to Infinity), female (♀) for Gordon, uppercase omega (Ω) for Moore (referencing Leo, his zodiac sign), and a drawing of a demonic–angelic baby holding drumsticks for Shelley.

The sleeve layout is credited to Slim Smith.

Gatefold opened, with photography by Michael Lavine

CD re-issue featuring the same four symbols for the band members as the LPs show

“Sick & Panic” by Macintosh Plus (a.k.a. Vektroid) is an experimental single released in December 2019 on the Chronos & Vermilion label, a clothing and multimedia imprint started by the artist.

Vektroid is an American electronic musician from Portland, Oregon. She is particularly invested in vaporwave. Of her various pseudonyms, Macintosh Plus is used more often for her musical compositions of vaporwave.

The cover of this project is clearly in the vaporwave aesthetic, with a marble statue cut out and colored, very vivid colors, and a typeface that is rather vintage (cf. the Floral Shoppe album from 2011). Eurostile is a typeface that dates from the early 1960s and was often used in the late 20th century. It’s Vektroid herself who designed the cover.

In this typographic composition the typeface is skewed, to create the impression of spatiality. Both on the front and the back, the typography takes an important role for creating forms with a strange perspective. The small text on the back uses the same typeface, in black, and partly set vertically.

[More info on Discogs]

Sleeve with vinyl record

Vinyl records

Back cover

Artwork for Escapist Blues by Jensen Tjhung and Tom Lyngcoln (12″ LP, Solar/Sonar Records). Design by Duncan Blachford (Tempo Haus).

The design features several cuts of Epicene Display and Epicene Text, a type family from Klim Type Foundry about which designer Sowersby writes: “Typographically, Epicene’s exaggerated details add rigour at small sizes and vigour at large sizes.”

The design explores both these attributes, and Sowersby is true to their word. Those paying close attention may notice that – in a few cases – forced italics have been introduced to circumnavigate Epicene Display’s characterful uppercase italic Y – which was deemed too ornamental for this particular usage.

From the record label:

Escapist Blues is a collection of spoken word verse by author Jensen Tjhung and scored by Tom Lyngcoln ... Missives from other worlds, hammered down one-way phone conversations and writ large with big sounds. These pieces employ a sonic and descriptive architecture that builds tangible environments and situations that you can move around in and inhabit. Like it’s happening to you. But yes, these are claustrophobic spaces and you’ll be crawling or at the very least stooped.

Limited to a single pressing of 300 hand numbered copies and manufactured in Melbourne, Australia by Program Records, Escapist Blues also features an 8 page booklet of Tjhung’s text, printed on 150gsm Envirocare.

Jacket printed on heavy/uncoated stock
Contains 8pp booklet, printed on 150gsm Envirocare
Available via Solar/Sonar Records.

Autoreverse is a project by Nina Garcia (electric guitar) and Arnaud Rivière (electronics). The first release by the experimental/noise duo is titled Esreverotua. Yes, that’s Autoreverse, reversed. Esreverotua features two live recordings of 20 minutes each, and is freely available for download from Da! Heard It Records (donations are welcome). The record also comes in the form of a compact cassette, in a limited edition of 111 copies.

Here’s where Esreverotua becomes interesting on a visual level, too. Hélène Marian took care of the graphic design. Instead of creating the usual J-card, she came up with a solution that is as direct and unconventional as the music itself. The exclusively typographic design is printed right on the plastic case and the cassette itself, in white ink. Paris-based Institut Sérigraphique provided the screen printing. The fonts are Marian’s own: she combined several styles of her heterogeneous PVC series – the superwide Banner, the impactful Promo, and the economic Menu; the latter being her personal take on a typical French brush lettering style. All fonts are used in all caps. They are arranged in rhythmic sequences and loops that feed back into each other, with some words amplified in volume, aptly visualizing the sound of Autoreverse. Marian also made an animation to promote the release which picks up the motif of a winding tape, as well as a matching tour poster. PVC is available from Production Type.

Black Forest is the second act in a trilogy of performances by Luke Shaw, initiated at None Gallery in Dunedin, NZ during the winter of 2018 and concluded at The Physics Room contemporary art space in the spring of the same year. This book (200×130×30mm case bound) uses the form of the loose bound ephemera box to collate together a series of images and recordings to represent the non-narrative nature of Shaw’s practice, allowing the reader to form the narrative for themselves

The artist’s book, containing images and sound recording by Luke Shaw (and liner notes by Luke Wood) was edited, designed and bound by Daniel Shaskey. Typography is set in Harbour and Gill Sans. The title used Harbour Bold with an elongated t.

For the first solo record of Beijing-based cellist and multimedia artist Gogoj (also known as 盛潔, or Sheng Jie), designer Qingyu Wu conceived a very stark sleeve, using a combination of KRSNA (originally designed for another record cover) and a yet unidentified Chinese font. The title on the front is printed with silver metallic ink and the back cover layout is entirely vertical (a typesetting known as 纵排 [zongpai] in Chinese), like if the liquid text was dripping from the top of the record (see also the raining code from the Matrix movie).

The combination of black and silver inks with spiky interlocking letters might recall to some people the viewing of cyberpunk masterpiece Tetsuo the Ironman, the story of a salaryman turning into a metal creature made of screws and pipes. A movie so raw (in all the meanings of the word) that it is the perfect echo to gogoj’s music, a mesmerizing mix of classical cello performance and loud noise music.

Limited to 300 copies, the record is still (at the time of writing) available from Maybe Noise Records and WV Sorcerer Productions.

KRSNA is part of the Lab typefaces, available from Swiss Typefaces.

[More info on Discogs]

Album art and T-shirt for CLPPNG, a rap album by clipping., released in 2014 on the Sub Pop label. Design by Dusty Summers of The Heads Of State design studio with an illustration by Tim Lahan.

[More info on Discogs]

The self-titled debut record by Heads. was designed by Manuel Wesely from mm, m using only the Regular weight of Proto Grotesk.

The 5 letters from the band’s name are rearranged (E is even merged with A) and stacked into a big square shape, seen through die-cut holes in the sleeve. On the back of the inner sleeve, are drawn esoteric symbols on white background, each one matching one of the holes.

When the inner sleeve is removed, holes reveal track names and credits, matching the point size of the record label.