TOP LEFT: Packaging for MTV Networks’ DIRECT EFFECT. TOP RIGHT: “Water was the concept of the 2005 Video Music Awards in Miami, so what better way to promote the show than drenching a bunch of celebrities?” says G. Dan Covert. BOTTOM LEFT: REGISTER TO ROCK! poster. “We only had $50,” say the designers, “so we decided to screenprint the posters in our apartment on stolen copies of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, a paper that represents the corporate agenda. This not only made each poster unique, but also furthered our concept. We will never forget driving around the streets of San Francisco with $2 in quarters trying to rob as many newspaper kiosks as possible without getting caught.” BOTTOM RIGHT: ANCILLE CD package using illustrations by Andreev and Alison Bailey. PHOTO: Alison Bailey

G. Dan Covert and Andre Andreev, MTV/dress code Latin Name: Thedresscodeis Casualus Ages: 21 and 24 425.417.8490 | www.dresscodeny.com

G. Dan Covert and Andre Andreev steer their careers from a crow’s nest of a studio accessed by a very steep ladder on the top floor of an East Village building in Manhattan. After putting in full days at their desk jobs, they come here to work well into the night on projects for their company, dress code. It’s a good thing they live downstairs because otherwise they’d never go home.

The two were also roommates in the Mission District of San Francisco while they attended school at California College of the Arts (CCA), where Michael Vanderbyl was impressed by their passion and drive. Having Covert in his thesis class was “a once-in-a-lifetime situation,” says Vanderbyl. “And then it occurred a second time [with Andreev.] They are going to be big in design.”

After graduating, Covert worked at Los Angeles’s XLARGE and New York’s karlssonwilker, while Andreev constructed masterpieces on the web working at Odopod. They reunited in New York when they both landed at MTV: Covert in the off-air department, Andreev in the on-air. They were assigned the slightly daunting task of designing the identity, interstitials, posters, and promos for the “2005 Video Music Awards,” taking direction from none other than guest creative Sean “P. Diddy” Combs. “We put all of our energy from the past three years into it,” says Andreev.

Music drives these designers, as do social issues: The duo regularly converts their studio into a silkscreen operation to crank out limited-edition posters for local bands and political propaganda. Covert and Andreev also participated in different years of the design-as-service workshop Project M, headed up by John Bielenberg, which heightened their awareness of design’s possibilities.

“We don’t think that designers should feel obligated to do good in the world,” says Andreev. “But design has the power ...” “... to do anything you want to do,” finishes Covert. For these two, this truth is blissfully apparent.
Alissa Walker