Ye Vagabonds Debut Album
Album Cover Design, Website and Tour Posters
05.2017
Scope: Art Direction / Logo / Packaging / Posters / Website
Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn produce harmony rich folk music, influenced by Irish traditional music, Appalachian singing, and the 1960's folk revival. Ye Vagabonds’ album is comprised of ten mellow tracks weaved with thoughtful lyrics, thickly layered with strings and droning harmonium.
I was asked by the brothers to help frame their debut album as well as the surrounding promotional campaign with a look that expresed the authenticity and character of their music as well as their performances. Together with Conor Campbell, a talented Irish, artist YV had highlighted early in the process we undertook the exercise of exploring the music and what kind of graphic identity that would come from it.
With four individual paintings commissioned from Conor, we had a massive amount content to work from. The paintings came out in Conor’s wonderful idiosyncratic style, full of detail and mystery with a strong connection to nature. Noticing the microcosm of detail in the paintings when viewed on the extreme close-up, whole new compositions could be created by just zooming into any part of the paintings.
This twofold approach to presenting the artwork allowed for varied ways of promoting the album without revealing the entire paintings until the launch. It also could represent the stripped back nature of the music and how it could be enjoyed as a grand expression of modern Irish folk or become as intimate as the personal and emotional core of their music.
To frame this the album and it’s promotional material is encased in pure white, windows revealing the explosive expression that lies beneath. This came into great effect as I was designing and developing the band’s website (yevagabonds.com); as the user scrolls, all the elements on the page (text, buttons, frames) become cutaway peep holes to the moving mass of colour and complexity that lies underneath.
YV recorded and produced a number of the songs on the album in my home in Castletownshend, West Cork. I’m proud to have had them and I treasure that time as an early collaborative and creative period.
Ye Vagabonds Debut Album
Album Cover Design, Website and Tour Posters
05.2017
Scope: Art Direction / Logo / Packaging / Posters / Website
Diarmuid and Brían Mac Gloinn produce harmony rich folk music, influenced by Irish traditional music, Appalachian singing, and the 1960's folk revival. Ye Vagabonds’ album is comprised of ten mellow tracks weaved with thoughtful lyrics, thickly layered with strings and droning harmonium.
I was asked by the brothers to help frame their debut album as well as the surrounding promotional campaign with a look that expresed the authenticity and character of their music as well as their performances. Together with Conor Campbell, a talented Irish, artist YV had highlighted early in the process we undertook the exercise of exploring the music and what kind of graphic identity that would come from it.
With four individual paintings commissioned from Conor, we had a massive amount content to work from. The paintings came out in Conor’s wonderful idiosyncratic style, full of detail and mystery with a strong connection to nature. Noticing the microcosm of detail in the paintings when viewed on the extreme close-up, whole new compositions could be created by just zooming into any part of the paintings.
This twofold approach to presenting the artwork allowed for varied ways of promoting the album without revealing the entire paintings until the launch. It also could represent the stripped back nature of the music and how it could be enjoyed as a grand expression of modern Irish folk or become as intimate as the personal and emotional core of their music.
To frame this the album and it’s promotional material is encased in pure white, windows revealing the explosive expression that lies beneath. This came into great effect as I was designing and developing the band’s website (yevagabonds.com); as the user scrolls, all the elements on the page (text, buttons, frames) become cutaway peep holes to the moving mass of colour and complexity that lies underneath.
YV recorded and produced a number of the songs on the album in my home in Castletownshend, West Cork. I’m proud to have had them and I treasure that time as an early collaborative and creative period.