The Avett Brothers – The Avett Brothers
For their fifteenth full-length release, The Avett Brothers came to us to design a layered visual experience that embodies the deeply personal and calmly existential collection of songs that make up their eponymous album. The design articulates a pattern language that frames the band’s exploration of spirituality, intimacy, and rootedness. We turned to the complex, contemplative diagrams and charts of ancient gnosticism and hermeticism for initial inspiration. From there, we expanded our range of influences to poetry, and the band’s own deeply place-based (and significantly rural Southern) lineages.
This led to a rich, detail-oriented typographic palette that references literature, mystical diagrams, and vintage religious texts to create a textural atmosphere that is at once storied and contemporary.
Garamond Premier, Adobe’s version of the serif all-star, carries the suite’s body copy and titles, setting a sophisticated, literary tone that avoids coming across as stuffy or antiquated. Out of the Dark’s Syncro Italic, Rokha (W Type Foundry) and Dédale (205TF) are used as complementary fonts from the LP jacket interior diagram to the lyric “poetry” chapbook for their strong character and classical references.
A flexible website supports the album release, combining the contemplative, bookish atmosphere of band’s off-road lives with the invigorating energy of their live performances. Its typography takes a more modern, evergreen approach, with SwissPosters by newglyph and The Future (Klim Type Foundry) contrasting Garamond Première.
