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As Tiffany Meyers observes in her overview of the 100 winners, one can’t peg 2009 as the year of any specific color or typographic convention. But the winning projects are reflective of today’s increasingly diverse design discipline. In fact, one has to wonder if there is any longer such a thing as a design discipline—in light of today’s fast-changing and even amorphous practice, the word discipline seems a little out of place.
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DESIGN 100: Packaging (cont'd) |
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84 THE DECODER RING
Modest Mouse front man Isaac Brock had done most of his own packaging
design before, says designer Christian Helms. This time he found
himself facing a short deadline with no room in his head, so he turned to
The Decoder Ring of Austin, Texas. “The next morning I was on a plane
to Portland in a blizzard,” says Helms. “We had a big geek-out session
about aesthetics we both loved and how they could inform the packaging.
It was important to us to create a mood that was specific and a narrative
that was vague.”
As a music lover and longtime Mouse fan, Helms thought it was
great when former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr joined the band
in 2006. Helms pitched this CD box idea early on, but the label
was uptight about the deadline. Anything out of the ordinary was
out of the question, they said. “Isaac got on the phone and 20 minutes
later we had carte blanche to create whatever excited us,”
Helms recalls. They produced a striking design, combining iconography
and illustration, flawlessly mirroring the record’s contrasts
of tone and theme. The band loved it. “Johnny Marr said it
was as weird and beautiful as Isaac’s lyrics,” Helms says, “which is
a pretty staggering compliment.” by Dana Rouse
The Decoder Ring Design Concern | Art Directors: Christian Helms, Isaac Brock, Naheed Simjee | Designer: Christian Helms | Illustrators: David Ellis, Christian Helms, Casey Burns | Clients: Epic Records/Sony BMG, Modest Mouse | Contact: www.thedecoderring.com
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