Brian Carter

The World/Inferno Friendship Society • www.worldinferno.com

2007 • Band homepage

An example of dynamic page and menu rendering.

Total site redesign based on artwork from Addicted to Bad Ideas CD. My responsibilities included all design work, and most code work (php).

The site was converted from a flat, html/Dreamweaver-built site to a dynamic, mysql-driven one, allowing the band to update their show schedule and latest news using a database with a custom built front-end. We had to keep the design and production simple as work began after submitting CD artwork, and had to be completed before the CD was released (about a month altogether). With the technological end to worry about, we did not want to be pushing pixels at the last minute.

Even with this time crunch, I was able to get some innovative stuff into the design. Since the cd artwork involved the seemingly random and chaotic placement of text (fitting with the band’s image), I tried to replicate something similar in the website. As text on a website can only be horizontal this left only a few ways to accomplish this: image rotation and text placement.

The text in the navigation menu that appears on every page is made up of images. Every time a page is visited, the menu is rendered. Instead of just pulling a specific image for a link, the code uses a random number generator to pull one of several possible images. This gives the pages a life they could not have had as static elements.

Even more up front, I used this same technique on the “shows” page where each show paragraph is given a different alignment on page load. the code chooses a random alignment of a paragraph.

Addicted To Bad Ideas • The World/Inferno Friendship Society

CD and Vinyl Artwork • 2007 • Chunksaah Records • CD & Vinyl

I was given considerable creative freedom on this packaging, and I had a really good time with it. I used the subject of the concept album, Peter Lorre, to guide my designs. Instead of a standard four-color printing process, I used metallic silver ink, a darker-than-standard black ink, and bright red to give the package the feel of an old movie poster or the silver screen.

The project was one of my more difficult ones as I had to do all of the pre-press (using metallic ink brings about new challenges) while on tour with the band, although it did allow me instant client feedback.

Superpretty • Superpretty

CD Artwork • 2006 • Self-Released

The only guidance I was given on this album packaging a suggestion of “something aboreal, perhaps similar to an old Japanese painting.” My first concept was approved immediately and after some fine-tuning, we were off to the presses! Not only was the production process clean, but I’m very happy with the designs. I love using strict grids, even more so when I get to experiment with them as I did in this project.

Red-Eyed Soul • The World/Inferno Friendship Society

CD and Vinyl artwork• 2006 • Chunksaah Records

Red-Eyed Soul was The World/Inferno Friendship Society’s first release on Chunksaah, and the first I did with them. The concept was art directed by Franz Nicolay, so most of the work went into visualizing his ideas. No small feat, as he wanted a design that replicated Victorian era printing conventions.

Before and After faux daugerrotyping.

Making New Look Old. The concept of this album being a Victorian era document required the photos to look like old daguerreotypes. However, all the images selected for the album had very vibrant and punchy colors. I didn’t want to lose the vibrancy of the photos, but I wanted the packaging to feel authentic. Digitially handcoloring the images would have been one thought, but there was a lot of work to do.

I came up with an inventive way of processing the images. It involved converting to the LAB colorspace, which allowed image color to be processed separately from contrast. Color was then somewhat desaturated, leaving behind only what was originally the most vibrant colors (although quite desaturated at this point). I blurred just the color so that only the centers of objects would be colorized, with the desaturated areas fading to sepia. I then oversaturated these blobs of color, leading to a very authentic looking hand-colored effect.

Flyers

Once upon a time I was in a band and did a lot of flyers for said band. Depending on the promotion budget, I’d stick to one color or go up to four. I used these flyers as opportunities to experiment with page layouts and techniques.

Illustrations

Once upon a time, before I knew what computers were, I drew. Well, after I got into computers, I drew too. Especially when I found the beauty of vectors in Adobe Illustrator.

Some of these illustrations are for t-shirts, some are just for fun or experimentation. Many involve the use of the gradient mesh tool. I’ve included views of just the outlines so you can see how they were constructed.