For a client like Coachella it's crucial to construct a system that allows for flexibility. I designed the rules for this system in such a way that I could create the requested assets, but would also be ready to create assets on the fly responding to new asset requests during and reacting to the events on stage and amongst the crowd. To that end, what I limited was "limits", using any combination of colors and organic shapes made by tearing pieces of paper I could make an infinite variety of compositions. The only real rule I used was "don't let shapes bleed off the canvas". This simple rule I found was enough to contain what otherwise might seem like chaos, but this "gentle gathering of chaos" combined with following instincts for color, form and composition was enough to create a distinct identity while also preventing the "rules" I create from getting in my own way.

Some Coachella artists used our assets to promote their performances on their own IG accounts.

To create a graphic system that's recognizable without distracting from the music videos themselves, I developed a system that uses simple shapes and blurs to temporarily obscure the type in ways that suggest different kinds of "fantastic machines" that perform the job of introducing type and then shuffling it away in ways that are easily understood by the eye and create individual narrative moments for each asset.

To create a system that is sophisticated yet bears no lack of character I relied on simple shapes like squares and circles, and a restrained color palette. I used Google Roboto which is quite flexible and allowed a variety of scale changes to create dynamic typographic moments.

Utilizing AI assistance I developed a system of interactive animated gradients using WebGL / GLSL, that respond to mouse movement. The colors are based on the brand palette, and the motion was designed to give the gradient a subtle impression of life and interaction, without affecting the legibility of the type set over it with distracting movements. As an alternate for situations where type isn't set over top, I also developed a version that mimics stones being thrown into a pond, creating ripples wherever the mouse is moved.

My Graphic Design MFA thesis at MICA establishes a connection between Susan Sontag’s Notes on Camp and meta– modernism, a sensibility described in Luke Turner’s Notes on Meta Modernism as “informed naivety”. Using the vehicles of type design, image–making, visual identity and poetry, I explored how this sensibility describes my passion for campy fantasy novels from the 1960s, in the role of my Dungeons & Dragons character, GLORP.
   The sensibility of informed naivety precisely describes my relationship with campy fantasy, a genre that I’ve loved since I was young, despite my awareness that conventional culture doesn’t consider these books, nor the art that accompanied them, “good”. Yet to me they are glorious in their lack of self-awareness, a charm that comes from a bold disregard for conventional taste. This is conveniently summarized in my observation that heroes on fantasy book covers never wear pants.
   “What does the pants–less fantasy hero do, when not posing heroically?”, is the question I explored as GLORP, my character who I played for a year during the quarantine. Downtime GLORP acts as a muse that I invoke throughout my thesis book, to read poetry and guide the reader through all of the territories I roamed in my seach for my own interpretation of radical authenticity.

The sensibility of informed naivety precisely describes my relationship with campy fantasy, a genre that I’ve loved since I was young, despite my awareness that conventional culture doesn’t consider these books, nor the art that accompanied them, “good”. Yet to me they are glorious in their lack of self-awareness, a charm that comes from a bold disregard for conventional taste. This is conveniently summarized in my observation that heroes on fantasy book covers never wear pants.

“What does the pants–less fantasy hero do, when not posing heroically?”, is the question I explored as GLORP, my character who I played for a year during the quarantine. Downtime GLORP acts as a muse that I invoke throughout my thesis book, to read poetry and guide the reader through all of the territories I roamed in my seach for my own interpretation of radical authenticity.

I like to consider graphic design as commercial art and myself as a commercial artist—commercials are hilarious, they provide so much insight into cultural assumptions, and serve as a familiar format that jumpstarts a viewer into your introduction of a fresh and nuanced perspective. Here, the arcane aesthetics of an imaginary occult book series contrast against a neighborhood grocery store, creating tension and dimension between elements both fantastic and mundane.

Here I designed an imaginary commercial that feels like a conventional commercial, contrasting sharply against the established visual language of my thesis book. The product plays on the similarities between perscription drug names and space monsters of the 1960s. Zirtec, Zoloft and Zorak are similar phonetically, yet two are pills and one is an anthropomorphic mantis villain from Space Ghost (1966). I chose the name Zardoz for its poetic value, and for its association with the Sean Connery movie from 1974.

This section, called Riddim, ends with GLORP in his role as muse, providing a transition into “sponsored content”—a long form commercial break that continues the exploration of advertisements and their role in creating culture.

In this scene from Female Trouble, girl delinquents smoke in the bathroom. In his interview with Big Think, John Waters laments the loss of “pervert” bathroom culture to the seedy corners of the internet, where they now reside. Public bathrooms clearly have a cultural value that he appreciates and represents in his work. When showing his own art at the Baltimore Museum of Art, John Waters requested the museum’s bathrooms be named after him.

My concept for a museum curated by John Waters is, “The John”, where the gallery is in the bathroom. The visual identity takes inspiration from default signage found in bathrooms. I also developed an illustration style that connotes installation manuals for hardware. Placing the art gallery in a public restroom creates a delightful contrast between the worlds of high brow art and random people who just need to use the bathroom—a setting ripe for unexpected collisions that I am sure John Waters would appreciate.

Exhibitions at The John function with their own visual identities under the umbrella of the main identity, with room to establish a unique experience to keep things fresh, while complimenting and remaining cohesive with the main identity's tone.