Alphabet Arm Design News

Here is a sneak preview of the new full length release we just finished up for our friend Coby Brown. A Boston native who now resides in LA, Coby is a singer-songwriter making soulful indie-pop music. The artwork explores the ideas of fate, randomness, destiny and triumph. Although the digipak is still in production, but we’re so excited, we just had to blog about it.

• Mates Of State - Re-Arrange Us
• Menomena - Friend and Foe
• Valient Thorr - Immortalizer
• The Black Keys - Attack & Release
• Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago
• The Sword - Gods of the Earth
• Torche - Menaderthal

• Beck - Modern Guilt
• The Cool Kids - The Bake Sale
• Wale - Mixtape About Nothing
• Girl Talk - Feed the Animals
• Thunderbirds Are Now! - Justamustache
• Los Campesinos! - Hold On Now, Youngster

We’re happy to report that a record we designed about 5 years ago has finally been manufactured and about to hit the streets. For those of you who don’t know Fakts One, he’s 1/3 of the Perceptionists (Mr. Lif and Akrobatik) and one hell of a DJ. We hadn’t heard a bunch of these tracks until recently, but it was well worth the wait!

We also dig monsters and kitschy old comics. That was the inspiration for our latest self-promo piece. Once again, we teamed up with Jakprints, our partners in crime with ton of super-powered printing abilities (not to mention, they are industry trailblazers in eco-friendly printing). They did an amazing job printing the piece we designed and illustrated — including a sweet multi-level embossing of a giant radioactive lizard. P.S. You can get your very own when ordering a sample pak!

We recently finished work on a new identity for a swanky new wine bar in Harlem. We’re quite pleased with the fact that it is a rather versatile system. It works simple + clean as a standalone mark while holding it’s own in the more ornate branding banner. Our intent with the brand colors was to utilize a two color system that would work equally well on both light and dark backgrounds without sacrificing the logo’s integrity.
As the story goes, we made a cheeky little joke with our client when they asked what kind of bird we modeled for the logo, “a harlembird of course.” That turned out to be the element that sealed the deal on that treatment, you can never underestimate the power of quick wit.

• The Sword - Gods of the Earth
• The Alrighters - Demo
• These New Puritans - Beat Pyramid
• Valient Thorr - Legend of the World
• Social Circkle - Demo

We have a few new Alphabet Arm t-shirt designs in the works for the very near future. This one is hot off the presses and ready to be ordered + rocked. Summer is here and you’ll need a fresh new shirt to wear to barbecues, firework displays, backyard wrestling tournaments and robot conventions.

You can get your very own at our online store. Check back soon for new designs!

The much anticipated book by Stoltze Design, 1000 Music Graphics (Rockport), is finally out and in stores. We’re particularly enthusiastic about this because we had a bunch of our work selected and published in it. Honestly, its a great collection of work that we are proud to be a part of.

If you’re from Boston, you know Kay—or at least, the legend that is. If you don’t know who Kay Hanley is, you need to. She is a supremely talented songwriter / singer / guitarist, this record kills it. One of our first high-profile CDs we art directed was for her former band, Letters to Cleo (GO! - Warner Bros Records). Kay is one of our favorite and most loyal clients. Check out what she wrote about us on her blog.