box set

Bunch of layouts

This is the Born Against ‘Rebel Sound of Shit and Failure’ LP jacket reissue on Prank Records. The technical print problem with the original Prank Records version of this LP was that the halftone dots weren’t big enough and the overprint wasn’t set properly. This reissue looks much better than the first reissue on Prank and also looks more like the original release put out on Vermiform Records.

Layout for the Municipal Waste LP/CD on Earache:

Conqueror/Black Witchery split LP on Nuclear War Now! Productions:

I have done many many more awesome LP layouts for Nuclear War Now! Productions, and I am excited to be including those soon.

Now for some fantastic stuff on Tankcrimes:

The Abscess/Population Reduction split LP:

Some various LP Layouts:

Toxic Holocaust/Inepsy split LP jacket cover:

Shadow Kingdom Records layouts - Iron Man LP jacket cover:

Various Shadow Kingdom records CD layouts:

Motion Graphics

Oakland Brainsqueeze Advertisement Video

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awRfAg8ca_w

This is a promotional video for the Tankcrimes Oakland Brainsqueeze—the American version of the Japanese punk/thrash festival, Yokohama Brainsqueeze, which is happening in about a month. Ross Sewage did an excellent job with the pro-wrestling/Monster Truck ad announcer voices. This was a very fun project to do; it’s not every day that you get to come up with a crazy motion graphics piece for such a wild event.

Illustration

Voetsek – Bay Area Fast

I read Sean Clivers’ ‘Disposable‘, a skateboard art history book a while back when it first came out. He mentions how M. C. Escher was a huge influence on Vernon Courtlandt Johnson. If you look at MCE’s ‘Dragon‘ and then look at VCJ’s Powell Peralta 1980 Steve Caballero deck, the influence is especially noticeable. However, VCJ ran with it. That style of line really art lends itself to screen-printing on skateboard decks with a clean yet very edgy esthetic.

I’m not sure if Durer was ever mentioned in the book, but one day I stared at Durers’ ‘Revelation Four Riders’ for a long time and then went on to play World of Warcraft. As I was playing I was inspired and doodled on a piece of paper thinking of this style of line art and how cool it was.

Then Voetsek had to go on their 2008 tour and they needed a new shirt design. Scotty walked in my room and saw one of the doodles. He liked it so much he said, “That one! That’s the shirt”. They went ahead and had the shirts made and it was the best seller on that tour. It sold out before the tour was even over!

Since the shirt did so well on tour they decided to have it available through Warlord Clothing. You can order it here.

Wordpress Themes

GPR Absurd Blog Theme

I decided to take a new approach with my latest website, the Give Praise Records Absurd downloads blog theme.

Paul Praise contacted me about creating a header image for his new blog. Since I’ve worked with Paul in the past I wanted to do something more fun and decided to make a wordpress theme that he would really enjoy instead. He already has a blog for his label, Give Praise Records, but he wanted a separate blog for free downloads of obscure demos and other rarities by bands on his label. The concept would be ‘absurdity’ in a Chevy Chase (who has been kind of an icon for GPR), beach scenes and whatever goes kind of  way. I chose pizzas, monkeys and robots of course.

This is the header for the home page, which also features the A-Team van, a World War II German failed attempt at a flying saucer, Vincent the thrash cat and Linda Blair.

This is the header for rest of  the blog.  As a side note, while I was making this I wasn’t sure if the ‘pages option’ was going to be used for this blog, so this header still has the ‘about link’ at the top. In the future, if Paul decides to use pages at some point with this blog it will look nice either way. Part of the point of using a CMS is giving the client this type of flexibility.

Finally, this is the footer with sidebar elements. Check out the the clear tapes—the transparency aspect adds a cool detail on the images and the cassettes give it a real old-school touch.

launch site: absurd.givepraiserecords.com

Ads

Brainsqueeze Advertizing

Ad we made for Decibel Magazine. When the art isn’t ready yet, scan something else and pull out a typewriter.

The 11×17, this is for an offset 2 color print. There will be a 2 color screen print version much bigger, but not sure what size yet, and will be printed at Monolith Press. Illustration by Andrei Bouzikov.

2 sided handbills. Very old-school use of Futura Bold on the back.

Statement

The Original Artist Statement

Okay I’ll admit it: my first love is music. I ended up in art school because after playing in punk bands in Peru since I was a teenager and later in San Francisco, my parents weren’t too keen on my becoming a musician. Of course by then, it was too late, but I liked making art and I liked computers so I conceded to go along with their plan and enroll in a Computer Arts program.

The truth is, I wanted to sign up for 3D Animation but I made a mistake while filling out the registration forms and found myself in Computer Arts New Media instead. It wasn’t long before I realized that this was possibly one of the best mistakes I would ever make. I learned that I had a natural knack for web design, layouts and illustration, which I was able to put to good use almost immediately. I composed the layout for my band’s first record, and soon after I was asked to do layouts for local record labels. I was incredibly fortunate to benefit from a word-of-mouth reputation that spread like wild-fire.

As it turned out, a lot of people needed record and zine layouts and websites created—and not just local punk bands and labels. My clientele quickly diversified, necessitating a wide array of mediums, genres and classifications that have been rewarding and challenging. I have worked with some of my heroes. I have been pushed to learn, grow and develop a level of mastery I would have never thought possible.

I now know that possibilities are endless, and I have the ability manifest them.

Best Regards,

Mark Reategui