The first entry for this “visual identity process” can be found here.
As I mentioned in my first post I had decided that I would use this W Magazine spread with Tilda Swinton as my “spirit animal” for visual inspiration. And as I also mentioned, I had to figure out how to create this vibe on my budget (which was basically non-existent).
Over the weeks/months/years previous to this release I had made a file of photographers and designers whose work I had liked, and one person that I had consistently loved was the NY photographer, Shervin Lainez. He works with a lot of well-known and unknown musicians and his work is bold and stylized and I knew I wanted something along those lines but I was insecure about approaching him and I assumed he wouldn’t want to do it. So I contacted a few other people… and then I didn’t hear from them. Which brings me to a main point I want to make.
CREATORS - if you want to be in business, for real, you need to respond to people ASAP. If you can’t, you need to find someone you trust that will do it for you. There is seriously nothing I can’t stand more in artistic types than late response or lack of response, especially accompanied by wishy washy-ness. Everyone has bad periods when they fall behind in correspondence, but seriously… we are a dime a dozen. Survival Of The Fittest.
So, with that being said, I contacted a few photographers and designers and I didn’t hear from anyone, or if I did, their responses were indifferent. Not reassuring. One night I was drinking a martini and decided to just contact Shervin and see what happened, expecting he wouldn’t respond at all. I think he responded within the hour. He also checked in with me a week later to see where I was at in my decision making. No one else did that.
At the same time that I had made contact with Shervin, I also saw a post that the Boston band Mellow Bravo made on their facebook page. It was pictures of each of them done in a digital collage made by a guy named Michael Crockett. For whatever reason I saw this image and I thought, “I bet we could somehow create this natural/modern/Tilda/W Magazine world I’m thinking about through digital collage”.
And so I contacted him. He responded very shortly after, probably even that day, and then we scheduled a meeting that weekend.