Openmind designs
Items created by by design alter-ego, Openmind
‘One Man’s Weird Is Another Man’s World’, ‘The Shape Of Things That Hum’, ‘Magpies, Maps & Moons’.
Variant artwork for Japan, the booklet will have different versions of material too
Both Henry and I are very pleased with this final image, a true collaborative effort in every sense. I came up with the concept of a cosmonaut hanging in space, strapped into an unfeasibly large backpack, the kind you could only wear in zero gravity. He was originally to be suspended from the huge cylinder from the ‘Shape Of Things That Hum’ cover but we needed a bottom to the piece.
I asked Henry to illustrate all sorts of protrusions to attach to the image and additional pipes attaching the cosmonaut. In typical Flint style we went way above and beyond and illustrated a whole circular machine! This changed the whole composition as I felt it would be stronger with the cosmonaut suspended in the centre and then set about colouring both elements.
I bounced a myriad of different versions back and forth to gauge his opinion, some very rough and messy, others clean. We both agreed there was something missing at the end and, upon hearing the ‘Colours Beyond Colours’ track from my album, Henry suggested some sort of light beam or prism. I went away and tried a ton of lens flares and light effects to finish it off.
Release date: Dec 3rd (Japan) / Jan 16th (Rest of the world)
I think this might be one of my favourite designs for my own music, this is the track list for the album believe it or not. I’ve really been into circular designs for the last few years and I had this idea ages ago and had to save it for my own stuff. Such a shame artwork for music is getting smaller and smaller and I keep doing hyper-detailed stuff like this. Would love to see this on a 12″ picture disc one day, colours might change though…
Another one, too light and grainy
This one didn’t make it, too messy, but still nice
[singlepic id=3154 w=620 h=440 float=left]
Here we have what I hope to be the first in a series of limited edition signed prints of the work by Henry Flint that’s adorned my record sleeves over the last 2 years. The first one is ‘Life Cycle of a Machine’ that featured on my ‘The Shape of Things That Hum’ EP in late 2009 and was originally a B&W line drawing that Henry did which I have digitally coloured.
The giclee print is 64 x 47cm on 300gsm Somerset Photo paper which is 100% cotton and I can attest that the print is very high quality indeed. All will be signed by Henry and myself and will be available from Scraffer.com, sent rolled in a study cardboard tube. If these sell well there are plans for a further three prints featuring artwork from the album and EPs in the same format.
My third EP will be called ‘Magpies, Maps and Moons’, featuring 5 tracks with a vocal collaboration from JG Thirlwell and a musical one from 2econd Class Citizen. It will be out Oct/Nov, on 12″ and DL, not entirely sure the exact date yet, with the album to follow shortly afterwards.
More Henry Flint art for the album release, not sure how far this is finished yet.
Art by Henry Flint, colours by Strictly Kev, coming this Autumn…
Preview of an artwork book I was involved in a few years ago – copies still available here
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”360″]http://vimeo.com/25976745[/vimeo]
I am periodically asked by Ninja to find designs and artwork for old releases as they’ve been lost over time and they need to repress them. In order to do this I have to go through an ever lengthening process as time and technology marches on.
First of all I have to find the files amongst folders of CDr‘s
Then boot up an old G4 Powerbook that has the classic environment installed, the file formats are too old to be read by current Mac’s.
Transfer the files onto the laptop so that I can use the Extractor program to decompress them, hoping they haven’t corrupted in the ensuing years.
Bounce the files back to the Mac Pro and open them in Freehand 10, making a note of any fonts or files that haven’t been archived with the set.
Find said files and fonts, reload them and open the files.
Cut and paste the whole lot into InDesign to tweak and make print-ready for today’s environment. There is usually a bit of work to do as old files never convert exactly, certain details have changed over time (address, distribution etc) or things need tidying up as my design skills were lacking back in the day.
Convert to a Postscript PDF for the printer
Sorry for possibly the most dull post ever but I’m sure some designers will sympathise.
I just did a little interview with the blog Architects and Heroes this week, this is still warm it’s so up to date.
Amon Tobin‘s 2005 Splinter Cell game soundtrack has been remixed to coincide with the release of a new 3D version of the game. Various Ninja Tune artists such as Daedelus, Kid Koala, King Cannibal, The Qemists, Eskmo and Lorn have worked their magic on the tracks alongside a couple of new pieces by Amon himself.
For the artwork I was required to update the original and decided to experiment a little with the 3D analyph technique you can achieve in print. If you have a pair of red and blue 3D glasses to hand, have a look at this from the inner sleeve of the vinyl. The physical LP and CD versions are released in April but you can buy the download version right now from the Ninjashop.
I designed this last week for a club night in the US called See You Next Thursday (SYNTH), here you can see a rough progression through to the final forms.
