How did you come about to working with Simian Mobile Disco? 2010
I met SMD's manager Ollie in probably 2006 or 7. Ollie mentioned that the band were looking for some ideas for merchandise and T-shirt designs, after chatting about a few ideas we scheduled a time to meet the band. I went to see them at a show at Astoria (god its strange to think that place is closed now) it was apparent straight away that the band and I were definitely suited, they had amazing ideas, paralleled by a relaxed attitude and a confidence in me. Together we created the Attack Decay Sustain Release T-shirt series. At the start of 2009 I was approaching the year with a list of goals, one of which was to work along side a band for a full album campaign as an artistic director. That very same month, Ollie called me, and asked me to be just that. Working on the entire campaign for Temporary Pleasure was amazing, as well as the band they have an amazing record label, Wichita who awesomely created a lot of vinyl for the release and were happy with some of my more unorthodox packaging suggestions. Working on the SMD videos was definitely the highlight of the project, Synthesise (Co-Directed by Alex Sushon) is one of my best pieces of work even though it is lo-fi and we made it for virtually nothing. With three of the video's from that album under my belt, I have since gone on to be signed as a Director to Pulse, this is really exciting and I hope to make more left of centre music videos in 2011.
What is it that makes working with SMD interesting?
Jas and James are a dream client. They know what they want, and they know what they don't want. Within those parameters they have flexibility and interesting ideas. They think beyond "something that looks cool" and really focus on the concept and semiotic of the artwork. More than anything they appreciate the importance of design, and it's role in music, and alongside the rest of the team and all of the collaborators (and across all formats there were many!) they supported us and helped us create a really solid body of work.
