Any creative restraints that I find being put on me at work are usually made up for whenever my band has a gig. This always comes in the form of playing the actual music, but also in the form of gig fliers. I have absolute creative freedom with these mini works of art and it’s something I am completely passionate about.

Here are some of my favorites for local LA shows and beyond. Enjoy!

Karla Kelly was referred to me by fellow drummer Tom Mendola, a friend from my days at Diskeeper.

Karla has what one would call, the voice of an angel. I was happy to oblige when asked to design her album art.

Using existing photography I was able to whip up a design that fit perfectly with her musical style. Design included Ecowallet, 9-page insert and the CD itself.

Maybe I can hook her up with a website in the near future. We’ll see :)

CD Packaging for my band Lost Marauders. This was our first 4-song demo release. The concept behind the packaging was simplicity with a shout out to the classic high-energy album art from Sub-Pop in the late 80’s and early 90’s. Add an outlaw western flair and there you have it.

The final packaging was die-cut by hand out of recycled grocery bags. The front and back covers were printed on label paper and held the whole thing together.

You can find out more about the band at: www.lostmarauders.com

You can purchase the demo from iTunes: www.lostmarauders.com/itunes

The MannersCast is a great podcast that takes a fun look at everyday manners. The hosts are a great bunch of guys and I have become very close with their fearless leader Trent Armstrong.

After just one listen, I immediately wanted to help in their mission by doing their iTunes & website art for them. In case you’re wondering their mission, is to take over the world… MWAHAHAHAHA.

For the artwork, the first thing that came to mind was the classic inner-struggle between your good and evil sides. Here’s the end result that ended up on iTunes…

Subscribe to The MannersCast in iTunes • Visit The MannersCast Site

Every year around Oscar season my friends Jamie and Joe prepare for their annual Academy Awards party. I love to help out by designing the invitations for them. For the 2009 Oscars we decided to recreate the 1-sheets for the five films nominated for Best Picture to serve as te cover of the invitations.

This entailed a photo shoot and several hours in Photoshop, erasing parts of the original imagery, color correction of the new photography, compositing and finally typesetting and finishing.

The results were so good that they even decided to get full-sized prints made as decorations at the party.

NOTE: A little background is needed for a couple of these to make sense…
Slumdog: They live in Brentwood.
The Reader: Jamie is a Psychologist.

Full-resolution versions located here.

Here are additional samples of freelance work that I have done. My responsibilities for all three were concept, design, layout and typesetting.  Additionally, I provided photo retouching for the DrumFun and Lost City Arts ads and illustrations for the powerPlant postcard.

This is some of my older work but I’m still proud of it.

Here are some restorations done for TLC Photo Studio in Yonkers, NY. The most challenging parts were when I needed to create parts of the picture that were very badly damaged or even completely missing.

Theo’s the singer/guitarist in my band. He needed headshots for an acting gig he was going for. I said I’d shoot him.

I took his picture instead.