Shooby doo dwop. Binga ding dong.

A while ago, Eric Nemeyer (ericnemeyer.com), vibraphonist and publisher of Jazz Improv Magazine found a few of my jazz portraits online through a random Google image search. He was pretty impressed and thought I just might be the guy to design the packaging for his soon-to-be-released CD, Blessing In Disguise. He gave me a call. I jumped at the chance for this project. I hadn't designed CD packaging but it was certainly something on my list of things to do. Unfortunately, Eric didn't have any money for the design but we worked out a deal where I would get a full color ad in his nationally distributed magazine for an unspecified period of time (actually, I think the ad is still running years later).

Jazz LP designs of the 50s, especially the  Reid Miles covers for Blue Note, were my conceptual starting point. Many examples of these excellent covers can be seen at pixagogo. One of my early designs could've been in any 1959 American record store (the first design above). As appealing as I thought it was, it seemed there should be more emphasis on the artist. Since we didn't have any photography appropriate for a CD cover, an illustrative style that fit in with the Blue Note-like direction had to be developed.

This was a funny case where the illo style came from the typography. I found a roughly-hewn script style that looked like it was cut out of paper with an Xacto knife. This inspired me to draw the vibraphonist's hands with the same cut-out roughness. The drawing and the design happened fairly quickly. I used flat, simple colors to try to heighten the sense of excitement created by the lively and intense music. The disc label was a reiteration of the cover. All in all I think it was a fairly successful design. 

During this time, my daughter Hannah asked me to design the invitation for her high school senior recital. Since I was in full Blue Note mode, it turned out looking something like this: