If you follow me on Twitter, you might have seen me talking about the Finnish rock band Reckless Love over the past few months. The 4 boys in the band, Olli, Hessu, Jalle and Pepe hired me last year to create the band’s visual identity including the logo, a couple of cd single covers and their official label debut album cover.

I’m happy to announce that their debut is due to be released on February 24th, coincidentally my birthday! Shown above is the final album cover design I created for the guys.

I mentioned this in a previous post about the band, but there is nothing better then working with someone who is excited about their project. That makes me excited, and inevitably makes the work better. Reckless Love’s sound is inspired by hard rock and hair metal bands from the 80s, polished and updated nicely. So naturally, the design hearkens back to that era being inspired by bands such as Mötley Crüe and Van Halen:

I’ve been listening to the final album for a little while now as I worked on the designs and I really can’t wait for the release. Its construction is honest, and they capture perfectly the elements of fun from the era that inspires them, without any irony. It’s no secret that I love modern updates of things past, so I’ve enjoyed every second of working on this project.

More to come on Reckless Love, but in the meantime you can pre-order the album from Record Shop X.

February 24th, rockers . . . mark your calendars.

Avatar’s floating islands compared to Roger Dean’s painting:

Avatar’s arched rock formations compared to Roger Dean’s work:

I went and saw Avatar last night for the first time and really enjoyed the film. Beautiful colors and lovely phosphorescent lighting were peppered throughout the film, and I liked the contrast between the nice jungles and cold steel of the military ships. I won’t go too deeply into a review of the film, because that’s not what this blog is about :)

I would, however, like to point out one element of the film which relates to one of my favorite artists, Roger Dean. I saw a promo poster which featured big floating islands which immediately reminded me of Dean’s work, so I got pretty excited when I saw them appear onscreen. One of my favorite paintings come to life, which is pretty cool. Then another scene featured huge arching rock formations, reminiscent of yet another Roger Dean piece. Awesome.

I enjoy it when filmmakers use traditional works from the past and recreate them “for real” onscreen, and what better artist to gain inspiration from when dealing with alien landscapes?

On a related note, Alex over at ISO50 wrote an article discussing some of the typography choices of Avatar. Check it out.

To kick off the new year in form, the kind folks over at the Tuts+ Network asked me to design a commemorative 2010 poster. I am always in support of those people and websites who help out designers and developers on all levels, and the team over at the Tuts+ camp constantly exhaust themselves. They run VectorTuts, NetTuts, AudioTuts, the mighty PsdTuts and a plethora of other art and tech sites. So of course, I jumped at the opportunity to help out such an admirable bunch.

Additionally, Tuts+ are having a giveaway on their site where you could win one of 10 copies of the 2010 poster. Swing over to the Tuts+ 2010 contest post to see all the information. I created a wallpaper set of the design to download for your computer or iPhone, all of which are available on their website.

I love having an open-ended ticket to create a design, which was exactly what the team requested of me so long as it said “2010″ somewhere. After doing some research on sci-fi publications from the 70s and 80s I took some heavy inspiration from Omni magazine covers. Omni had a way of creating interesting yet vague imagery, something that left a lot to the imagination. I wanted to strike that vibe for the Tuts+ crew, I even modeled the type after Omni’s title treatment.

Initially, the design didn’t come together as quickly as I thought it would and the original attempts had me on a completely different course of action. Check out these early type-based versions:

I decided to ditch the entire concept and start from scratch, I wanted to do something more striking than a stylized number. I went back to the sketch phase and started working out another concept, and one involved an ‘exploding astronaut’ which later became the Abduzeedo anniversary poster. A big thanks to Sean Hodge over at the Tuts+ Network for being so cool as I fumbled about with my concepts in my search for the right one. You rule, man!

Swing on over to the post on Tuts+ for your chance to win one of the 2010 commemorative posters, and why not grab some wallpapers while you’re at it. Happy New Year!

Well, 2009 will be drawing to a close this evening in a flurry of fireworks and noisemakers, making way for the start of our brand new decade.

This is inevitably the time of year I think back on the events that happened over the past 12 months, what those events brought about and what they may lead to. Since I started this blog back in 2007 it is a wonderful way of looking back on a personal level to see what new artists I discovered, new pals I made and new collaborations that may happen.

But on a larger scale, I’ve been reflecting back over the past decade. At this moment in 1999 I was in Montreal visiting my friend Lisa and geared up for the big Y2K meltdown. I was listening to a lot of Rob Zombie and Radiohead, still flipping out over Fight Club and working my way as a fledgling designer through the web boom. I visited K10k and Designiskinky everyday, watched what new Flash experiments Joshua Davis was up to, all the while struggling to make a cool website for ‘this Signalnoise thing’ I had going. Man, good times.

I struggled this year to come up with an idea for the year-end wrap up post on Signalnoise, but because of lack of time and focus over the holidays it proved to be a bit difficult. However, here are three main items I would like to include on this last day of the decade:

1. Tuts+ Commemorative 2010 Poster
I was asked by the kind folks over at the Tuts+ Network to design an original poster and wallpaper for their big holiday giveaway that has been happening over the last 11 days. Well, tomorrow is the 12th and final day when they will be announcing and showing off the new Signalnoise poster I created for them. They will be giving away 10 copies so be sure to check it out tomorrow morning.

2. Signalnoise Crystal tutorial
Over the next week or so I will be creating a tutorial for the above poster, showing how I created that crystal. I’ve been wanting to provide you readers with more little tutorials over the past while, something I will be making more time to for in the new year. So stay tuned for that one.

3. You guys!
It wouldn’t be a year-end post if I didn’t give a huge shout-out to everyone who has been following and reading Signalnoise. Whether you hit my blog, follow me on Twitter, say hello on Facebook, highfive via Flickr . . . where ever you are, I wanted to send a huge thanks for the support you have given me and the blog over the last year. I only hope I can match your enthusiasm with posts on inspiration, process and other fun stuff. You all rock, thanks so much.

Have a happy and safe 2010!

Fabio Sasso and the bang-up team over at Abduzeedo are celebrating their 3rd year this month. 3 years is a long time of sharing inspiration, tutorials, advice and design news around the web and the team shows no sign of letting up. Fabio asked me to participate in the celebration by means of a poster giveaway, and since he has been an amazing supporter of me and my work for a few years now I am hugely honored to be a part of the big event. Shown above is my Abduzeedo 3rd Year Anniversary poster.

The inspiration behind this one is fairly simple: 2001: A Space Odyssey mixed with the Star Trek movie posters by Bob Peak I posted last week. I spent a considerable amount of time building the radium lines in this design, and the PSD file topped 1.4 GB near the end, probably my largest yet.

The massive giveaway is underway with lots of amazing prizes including three copies of this poster, so swing on over to Abduzeedo for your chance to win.

Happy 3 years, Abduzeedo! Here’s to many more.

Here is a 2-page spread I created for the kind folks over at Computer Arts Projects magazine, included in issue #131. Every issue of the mag contains the spread where different designers and artists use supplied phrases to create their own piece. I decided to make mine look like a mess of stickers, complete with little vector designs hidden amongst the fray.

The little round designs came from raiding my vector archives, it’s amazing how much you can amass over the course of a few years. You can see the full piece in a larger size right here.

Computer Arts Projects #131 is on newsstands in Europe right now.

Here is poster I designed for Motorola showcasing their new social media gadget, the Cliq. The client wanted something colorful to add interest to the phone, which was a perfect opportunity to use my curvature assets I developed a little while back.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this can be found in the new issue of Wired Magazine as a fold-out poster.

I’ve mentioned a few times that there is nothing better then working with clients who are excited about what they do, because in turn they make me excited about what I’m doing for them. Reckless Love is a prime example of this.

Reckless Love is a 4-piece hard rock/metal band from Finland inspired by the likes of Mötley Crüe, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Halen . . . everything fun about metal in the 1980s. They just recently released their second single called Beautiful Bomb to follow-up their first, One More Time. Their agent attached this promo shot with the email when he initially contacted me, to which I blurted out “These guys look awesome! I’ll definitely work with them!”

Olli (the lead singer) and I started hammering through the logo style, which went through a few different versions before we settled on the final design. We both wanted something big, like Metallica or Judas Priest, but still captured the fun of the group’s sound. I posted a few of the different iterations above to show how the process went, from the stripped down vectors to the final renders. As for the cover of the single they wanted something bright and colorful, which I was happy to hear :) ’80s metal goodness.

These are the kind of clients you want to work with, man. They are as excited about the music and design as I am, and we’re all coming from the same sources for inspiration in our different fields. Great bunch of guys, and more to come from Reckless Love, for sure. But in the meantime you can catch up with the guys on their Myspace.