I’ve been working on album and single artwork for my good friends KUTOSIS . We first started talking about the designs waaaay back in December after Simon Ayre and I took some photos of the band in snowy Bute Park. 

Some original designs I did were really stark black and white with ripped paper edges, which we all liked, but the band thought it needed to be something more. I started on a set of illustrations, each one representing members of the band. When we did the photoshoot, the guys had bought along some props, so these became the basis for the illustrations; an owl, a drum and a log with a phone handset attached (best not to ask). 

Around this time, the band decided on the name ‘Fanatical Love’ for the album, and an illustration of a jellyfish snuck into the mix (inspired by some amazing fact about their reproduction cycle that I’ve since forgotten).

I did some rough layouts for a fold-out sleeve featuring one of the illustrations on the cover and the rest inside, but it wasn’t eye-catching enough so the look developed again into something more collage-based. Inspired by an art installation Jim Ku and I saw in Barcelona last summer, I got a load of the illustrations printed and layered them up before ripping them to shreds.

So all was good….BUT we all felt it could do with a splash of colour. So I gathered up all the ripped bits of illustrations (actually, I’d put them all in a plastic bag, otherwise my hi-tech home photography studio (read: bathroom) would have been covered in paper and glue for weeks) and got a load of colour-themed clippings from various papers / magazines.

I had great fun with a load of pva glue and two separate collages emerged. The first one has become the cover for Shadows/Skin, the first single from the album, which is going to be available digitally and on a sweet limited edition blue cassette.

You can, and definitely should, order it here.

Album artwork to follow shortly along with some really cool album launch event details.