Life in Orbit (album art)

I am on Day Two of having a horrible week, but I'm determined not to keep complaining on my blog. (Even though not a single thing has been going right for me since yesterday). *Deep breath*. For my own mental health as well as yours, I'm moving on!

As I've mentioned in a previous blog - my best friend, Ryan, is a musician out on the West Coast. (That's a picture of him above...with a light bulb in his mouth. Yeah. I don't know either.) After years of talking about it, he's finally put together an album. He's not on a record label or anything - this is entirely a self-produced (and funded) effort. That said, it needs album art...free album art. Or as my brother-in-law would say, his budget is "free 99." Haha! Maybe it's funnier if you say it out loud. Sigh...

Anyway, the art part (and the free-for-best-friends part) is where I come in, apparently. He's been busy laying on the guilt real thick in order to get me to work something up for him before mid-April. As you are well aware, I have (what seems like) 100 difficult ongoing projects for my Typography class in addition to a full-time job. I have to pencil in dates with my own husband. Spare time is a luxury I don't have right now. Even though I'd normally love to do it, I'm afraid it just might not be possible at the moment. Though, I really really want to.

Just because I haven't had a chance to physically work up even so much as a rough draft for him doesn't mean I haven't been sketching things out in the back of my mind.
Since his album is titled "Life in Orbit", we have ourselves a readily accessible theme. I've been daydreaming of little 1950's stylized outer space illustrations, semi-cartoony rocket ships, and a retro color palate. Inside my head, little stars have been shooting around the Milky Way. I've been thinking about font.
Turns out Ryan has been thinking the same thing. He sent me samples of the style of album art he'd like. He sent me an e-mail and attached a lot of vintage outer space images. Granted, we've been friends since high school so it's probably not surprising that we're on the same page. But having the same vision as your client (paying client or not) is really helpful and makes me want to get to work. I love the idea of collaboration between musicians and visual arts. I'm just afraid my schedule is too much of a nightmare right now.

*Side note to Ry: What's with the random April deadline? If you'd just be patient and wait until this summer, I could so totally get it done! I'd have all kinds of time, and it would be fabulous. Why you gotta make this difficult? (o;

In the meantime, here are a few links for your listening pleasure: You can go take a peek at Ryan's music and pics on his MySpace page. He's also collaborated with his friend and fellow musician, Celene, on a project called Undercover Love. It's their strange and comical take on a variety of cover songs. Enjoy!