Moving on...

This will more than likely be the last post on this blog.

My new website www.marcbessant.com incorporates a blog and so I will continue to update from there instead..

Thanks for supporting Life on Marc.

Name that Rune

Over the last couple of months I have been fortunate enough to work with a great band called The Mountain Goats providing artwork for their forthcoming album 'All Eternals Deck'.

I'll post more info on the entire project and also show pics of cd/vinyl packaging when I get/photograph them in the next couple of weeks, but in the meantime heres one of the point-of-sale posters which'll be gracing stores shortly...

Reject of the Week (and its only monday)

WOMAD will be returning to Cáceres in Extremadura, Spain for the twentieth year this May and i was asked to pitch for the poster design, a first draft of which is shown above.

Some background - the 'emblem' of Cáceres is a stork so i thought i'd get the woodblocks out and give it a go along the lines of the old style travel posters but alas it wasn't to be, and now it sits atop the reject pile, shame because i quite liked this one....

New Blood on the road

For a couple of nights this March PG is taking his 'New Blood' show to the Hammersmith Apollo, these dates have been added to allow for the possibility of filming the concert in 3D for a forthcoming release. It all happened a bit quick therefore I had to pull something together for print in just a couple of hours to make the promoters schedule. I would love to have done a run of these showing the embryo in various stages of development, ah well maybe next time..

OXO=?

November has seen me fortunate enough to have a couple of pieces included in an exhibition of album cover art/design being held at the OXO Gallery, London.

Dates: 18 November 2010 - 9 January 2011
Opening times: 11am-6pm
Admission: FREE
Venue: gallery@oxo, Oxo Tower Wharf,
South Bank, London SE1 9PH

More details on 'The Art of the Album' can be found here

Return To The Ugly Side

Malachai are back with a new album early next year titled 'Return to the Ugly Side'. Tasked once again with the art & design, I was given the opportunity to listen to it early on and its a much sharper, darker affair this time round - they've certainly picked up some cuts and bruises along the way and of course this needed to be reflected in the sleeve, but wait, its not all doom and gloom, quite the opposite in fact, the end of one thing is very much the new beginnings of another, so thats the angle, beautiful things gone bad only to become beautiful again, the natural order of things. Cover pictured above. Will post more on this eclectic bunch soon...

Contaminated Waters

When i was younger there was an old guy who lived by my mums place who had a studio in his garage where he would hand-paint pub signs, i would walk by and see him in there working on various unfinished pieces that would soon adorn drinking spots around the country, it was fascinating work, in what was a very underrated artform, which is sadly now (like the pubs themselves) victims of hamfisted corporate giants. I like to think gig posters should also work in the same way as the pub signs of old, encapsulating a sense of place, time and atmosphere, a clue as to whats behind the door.

The poster above was done for 'Diego and the Dissidents' album launch event, i'd subsequently put the sleeve art together based on an old linocut of a tall ship i'd found, and this was another chance to do something along those lines. I love these old ships, and stories of the sea, comes from growing up on the coast i guess.

anyways, enough nostalgia, should be a good gig if the albums anything to go by..