This is a new poster for the upcoming KU Wind Ensemble concert featuring several works for french horn. Lots of twists and turns in that instrument, but it’s beautiful when played well!

I was very excited to be asked to design the second album for Allégresse titled Fresh Ink. The album contains 3 brand new works for flute, oboe, and piano by acclaimed composers Ingrid Stölzel, Kip Haaheim and Gabriela Lena Frank as well as a 20th Century work by William Grant Still.

Here are just a few of the ink spots I came up with in search of the “right ones” for the artwork. For most of them, I used an ink wash and a straw to blow the ink around the page. It’s still pretty unpredictable that way, but at least you can give it some direction.

One major goal for the design was to move towards a modern feel since it’s all new music. In addition to the literal depiction of the title, the ink spots reflect the new works making a splash in the existing canon of chamber music for flute, oboe and piano. I like the spot on the front that loosely resembles a dancer and the half-circle spot on the disc face which reference two of the new works Canto y Danza and Halo respectively.

It’s always exciting anytime new work is commissioned and beautifully executed and this album is certainly no exception. Here’s a great review of Fresh Ink that gives a much more eloquent description than I can give!

Visit the Allégresse website for information on purchasing this CD.

This was a fun new identity project for percussionist Cory Hills who has a side project called The Percussive Art of Storytelling. The project also included a few other pieces of collateral including a letterhead and mailing label. I had taken some photographs for Cory about a year ago and was excited to be able to use them on back side of the business cards!

This is a flyer I did for the Midwest Double Reed Society’s 2010 Double Reed Festival in Lawrence, KS. It’s a great group of people to work with and, since they use their fliers as mailers, posters and handouts, it’s always a challenge to create a piece that serves all purposes.

I love doing graphic design for classical musicians and so I was thrilled when violinist Tami Lee Hughes asked me to design a web site for her. She’s an extremely talented musician (look for her CD to come out soon!) and I had a lot of fun shooting her photos earlier in the year, too.

The site is hand-coded and implements a custom CSS design with jQuery and BlueprintCSS running behind the scenes. The site just launched, so you can check it out at www.tamileehughes.com!

I just finished up a children’s CD with percussionist Cory Hills titled The Lost Bicycle. The album consists of several fun, original works for percussion and storytelling including The Lost Bicycle, Tikki Tikki Tembo, and The Turnip. For the project, I did all the artwork, layout and photography. For more information on the CD or to order yourself a copy, contact Cory at his website.

The Lost Bicycle

The Turnip

This poster is just one of many reasons for the slow blogging schedule these days. Sorry about that. Lots of work, but little time to show it!

This is a poster that I designed and illustrated for the University of Georgia Band Department. Several pieces on the concert are sea themed, so that definitely informed the design process.

This is a poster for the upcoming Lawrence Chamber Orchestra Young Artists Concert on Sunday, April 26th and 2:00 p.m. The concert will feature the very talented flutist JoAnn Doll performing the C.P.E. Bach Concerto in D Minor for Flute and Orchestra.

I was really excited to work on the artwork for the newest CD release from oboist Margaret Marco entitled Hidden Gems: Oboe Sonatas of the French Baroque. It’s a recording that fills a very specific niche in the recorded oboe repertoire, but it’s a great album and if you like baroque music, it’s a wonderful addition to any music collection.

From the liner notes:

It is possible that the works on this CD have not been performed for 400 years. This is the first professional recording of these charming, evocatively colorful and, until now, cloistered sonatas. Not published in modern editions, the original prints of these works reside in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris where hundreds of such works from the Baroque period remain inaccessible to most oboists.

You can listen to samples and pick up a copy of the album on iTunes or CDBaby.

If you’re interested in hearing some great classical music, mark your calendars for October 22nd. As you can see, it’ll be a Gnojek family affair and the pieces are all very cool including works by Copland, Messaien, Gordon Goodwin, and Debussey. I did a series of 3 posters for Brian which included a fun nighttime photo shoot.

Rather than have a bunch of columns or unnecessary information, I decided to try out a skinny design (440px!) to see how it works and I think it’ll be just what they’re needing. I also utilized some MooTools on the front page which are some cool javascripts that fail very elegantly if the viewer doesn’t have javascript running. Always important for accessible websites!

Check it out at www.kansasflutefestival.com!

In a bold effort to bring back the lost art of the mixtape, then there’s a new online service called Muxtape that allows you to create a music mix and share it easily with others online. It’s simple, easy to use and is even supposed to be iPhone friendly. Although it seems like there are certainly some legal issues here, it’s a neat way to learn about different music, so we’ll see how long it sticks around. The creator, Justin Oullette, is also a photographer with some pretty cool work.

You can check out a mix I made at designojek.muxtape.com and I’ll change it around from time to time.

UPDATE: They’ve added RSS feeds now, so you can keep track of any edits using your favorite feed reeder! Also, I’ve been trying out Google Reader for the past couple of months and I think I’m sold on it.