man, when it rains it pours. beyond apollo is site of month in the september issue of .net magazine. click here to read the full PDF including a short interview with us about the making of the site.
we are truly honoured. thanks again to film director?michael grodner for giving us this chance.
it gives us great pleasure to present the cover for the protomen’s long-awaited second album, act 2 – the father of death. once again a huge thank you to artist john delucca for his stellar draftsmanship. it’s not often you can completely realize a vision, particularly one as vivid and painstakingly detailed as that of the protomen.
we handled all design + layout duties on this project and created the 24 page booklet that comes with the cd. if you are a fan of the film-makers john carpenter, walter hill, sergio leone, ridley scott and james cameron, then this record is for you. for all involved it was an exercise in bringing together every element of the toughest cinematic experiences out there and melding it into an audio-visual experience of the most unique and powerful caliber.
the record is out on september 8th, but you can preorder it now either at zambooie or on amazon. for more information about this and the forthcoming release show, check out the band’s news page.
overall it’s extremely satisfying working with a band like the protomen. particularly when after years of collaboration they still manage to enlighten and inspire with the consistent quality of their musical output.
here, complete with flash design by us, is the first fully mixed and mastered track from the protomen’s forthcoming new album, act II –
we’ve just been given the most humbling write-up over on the german design blog designjournal. we’re not sure what we did to deserve this honour but it’s a very flattering read. we want to extend our greatest thanks to the authors of that site and will of course be bookmarking it for future reading. after all we’d be foolish to question their taste at this juncture!
here’s a brief snippet of what they had to say about us:
Version industries is a remarkable small design studio in New York City.Version Industries provides design for print, motion and web.Especially in the latter discipline, the studio shows its strengths.The – now come in the years – Website Version of industries is unique, it creates a very strange atmosphere, and has simply charm.
you can read the full translation by google here, or the original german here.
the other big news is that we’ve just risen from number 18 to number 7 in the design charts. this is our first 2 week stint in the charts & we’re pretty stoked about it.
we’ve also just been informed that both beyond apollo and house of jackie brown have been posted for user comments and ratings at the rather elegant design bookmarking site, irie.be. again, truly thankful to these bastions of aesthetic connoisseurship for pushing our work out to a wider audience.
so we had the great honour of being in the july issue of .net magazine, a UK based print magazine focussing on web design. our website for house of jackie brown piqued the interest of their editors and landed us a place in their showcase/gallery. you can view a PDF of the write-up we got here.
lucky pierre music just emerged again for the first time in 5 years. the last time it was around we were just fans of the music they had under their umbrella, this time we had a small hand in heralding their return.
so what’s the story? well, where to even start?
back when everything seemed to matter more, everyone at (v) got into a band called PRICK. we found the band originally because they were on nothing records, like so many other great bands back then. however what made PRICK particularly unique were the unusually crazed vocals and complex lyrical play of their mastermind, kevin mcmahon. a man, we soon discovered, that had a much larger and even more remarkable musical body of work than we could have imagined. with record releases dating back to the late 1970s, it turns out kevin’s musical scope and lyrical imagination was simply vast. in fact so beguiling and intriguing was it, that we flew from london in 2003 to see a rare performance by PRICK in their home town. since then have devoured every rare recording, morsel of news and rumor surrounding kevin’s extremely sparse and mysterious output of work. nothing like being into a cult band that always delivers, huh.
long story short, that was 6 years ago. today version industries are very proud to present the online music store for the entirety if kevin mcmahon’s body of work spanning from the late 70s to the present day, be it PRICK, lucky pierre, (sic) or fear of blue :
customized, reskinned and built with love for a guy who’s work’s kept us company in the studio since the very beginning, we hope you enjoy digging around and taking a good listen to the samples you find. we’ve gone to great lengths to ensure you can get the music in mp3 and FLAC as well as obtain physical copies of the releases. it should be a treat for newcomers and older fans alike.
before you do that though, take a listen to this song:
don’t say maybe, (lucky pierre, late 70s)
and watch this video:
attitude from poortraits of thinking (released 2010)
both should give you a good idea of what it is we do so love about this man’s work. there really is nothing quite like it in the grand scheme of things. enjoy.
we are proud to present the logo for the protomen’s forthcoming sophomore release, act 2. a limited run of t-shirts bearing this new emblem just sold out at their recent bonnaroo ’09 festival performance. stay tuned to the band’s online merch store at zambooie for a forthcoming new run of these shirts and more. in the meantime, check out the animated version that was projected above the band during their bonnaroo showcase:
mellowdrone’s second album angry bear went on sale today from their label, coming home records. as previously reported, we were responsible for the artwork for both the CD and the vinyl. you can view the front and back cover on our website now in the printwork section. fan of the band or otherwise, we hope you enjoy the work. though we must stress, the images won’t really come alive until you’ve heard the music and understood why you are seeing what you are seeing.
our teaser site for the feature film debut of director michael grodner, just went live. the film is to be called?beyond apollo and is based on the acclaimed science fiction novel of the same name by barry n. malzberg. the film is currently in pre-production, so everything you see is merely a conceptual taster of what’s in store. for up-to-date information about the film check out the beyond apollo blog. otherwise, as ever, we hope you enjoy the experience we’ve created.
david carson has posted a link to our recent article about design and advertising on his own website. we feel vindicated (to say the least) to have received this kind of acknowledgement of our point of view.
