How have you passed the night?

• 2013-03-21

  

  Stitched song titles for the Wide Awake artwork. I kind of burned out my mom’s sewing machine working on this album and the Lua single. I didn’t totally kill it, but it sounded really pissed off when I was done. Sorry, mom.

• 2013-03-02

  

  We swapped out half of the Saddle Creek Shop display cases today. On top is the Bright Eyes “Lua” single tapestry, along with the stitched titles and CD insert. The small white circle is the moon from the artwork, the larger one is a reflection of a ceiling light from the shop. The moon in the tapestry is made from shiny fabric so it would be luminescent compared to the rest of the dark fabric.

  Below is a test silk-screen of the jacket for “Letting off the Happiness” LP. I did the test run on colored stock, but the actual LP jacket was printed on white. The original mockup for the LP insert is off to the right. It was photocopied from a typed sheet with a 3”x5” photo taped to the bottom. No one I’ve asked knows who is in the photo, it’s a few people swimming. The LP inner sleeve from the 7LP vinyl box set is below that, which was scanned from an original jacket. The silk screened test print is stamped “000/300”. All of these silk screened covers looked terrible because I didn’t know what I was doing.

• →

  

  As I’m sure you’ve already seen, here’s the front and back art that I made for the second Desa 7”.

  It’s available for pre-order here.

  They dedicated the record to Private First Class Bradley E. Manning, “an All-American Hero”. I agree with that credit. In his words, he believes the US public has a right to know the true cost of war. More here.

• 2013-02-03

  

  Coming soon…

• 2012-08-30

  

  This is the new shirt design I did for Desa’s new tour dates. I’m happy with how it turned out. I think it’s a good match to the “Fremont” shirt I did in 2010 when they played the Concert for Equality in Omaha (to protest Fremont, Nebraska’s new immigration law copying Arizona’s).
  
  Features the same guard tower from Sheriff Arpaio’s Tent City jail that’s featured on the cover of the new 7”. Complete with neon vacancy sign and of course the American flag… because, you know, GOD BLESS AMERICA and FREEDOM, etc, etc.

• 2012-08-01

  

  Just got done with the design for the new Desaparecidos double A-side 7”! Digital tracks will be going up for sale at midnight on August 2nd at www.desaparecidosband.com, and the limited edition 7” will be up for pre-order soon. There are links on their site to hear streams of both tracks at Huffington Post and Alternative Press. Not sure how long those will be up though.
  
  “Marikkkopa” is about Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, AZ. The artwork shows the guard tower at Arpaio’s “tent city” jail. It has an American flag hanging off it, along with a pink neon “vacancy” sign. I threw a Homeland Security unmanned drone in there, because that’s where we’re heading as a country. Ominous times…
  
  “Backsell” is about major labels, radio payola, A&R, and money in the music industry in general. Backselling a track is when a radio DJ announces the name of the artist and song he just played. There’s a lot of commentary in here about many aspects of the major label music industry. The artwork is an actual email from a major label, part of evidence used in the criminal case of labels paying radio stations for airplay. This is totally illegal, but was happening egregiously all over the place until Elliott Spitzer investigated the practice, and some huge labels got in deep shit. The snippets of audio from music industry people are actual bits of voicemails from those people left on Conor’s phone, which I thought was hilarious.
  
  I think both are great tracks, and it’s hard to believe 10 years went by since the last time they were writing together. Very excited to see what else is coming!

• 2012-03-10

  

  This is maybe 5% of the way into the cross stitch for the Saddle Creek documentary DVD artwork (Spend an Evening with Saddle Creek). Nothing is as good a motivator as the primal terror that you’ve made promises to your friends that you can’t fulfill. This took a lot longer to finish that I originally thought when I pitched the idea. That’s pretty typical for me.
  
  Jason (who helps run the label and was half of the team behind the documentary) had a poster for the Cohen brothers movie “Fargo” that he really liked, which was a cross stitch design. But when I saw it I realized it was not real cross stitch, but a cheap photoshop job. I thought, “I’ll just do a real one, it’ll look better.” I underestimated how long it would take, especially all the yellow fill of the background. My lovely wife Melissa took on several stitching shifts and saved me.
  
  One great touch by the package designer (Scott Williams of Plexifilm, I think?) was to show the ratty back side of the cross stitch canvas, with all the messy knots, on the inside of the DVD insert. I thought that was a cool way to show that it was actually made in real life, and not made on a computer.
  
  Full disclosure: the titles were done by a local embroidery company and photoshopped onto the cross stitch. There was no way I could do that level of detail by hand, and that was a better option than doing the type with a font.

• 2012-03-09

  

  A lot of people have asked me if the artwork for “I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning” was based on a real place. It’s a compilation of different (NYC) images, but this one was the basis for the main part. I modified it quite a bit, but this was where I got the outlines for the buildings.
  
  It’s unfortunately not a beautiful or interesting photo, and I didn’t take it myself so I don’t even know where this is. Maybe someone in NYC will recognize it? As you can see, there’s no view of the skyline. I pulled that in from a different image. I also stretched the scene out horizontally so that it didn’t feel so squashed.
  
  So for what it’s worth, this is the place. If someone knows where this is, let me know!

• 2012-03-01

  

  Making the figures for “Lifted” and “There is No Beginning to the Story” EP, way back in 2001/2002. All the beasts and people were built from bent wire armatures, wrapped with cotton batting and thread, then scrap fabric and beads were sewed on top. I have a lot more photos of these, I’ll post more at some point.

• 2012-02-22

  connyxoberst asked: hey zack, just wondering if you can enlighten us about the crying girl with the snake and violin t-shirt design. what song/album is it supposed to be paired with? much debating has been done with little answers. thanks so much!

  Hi! I don’t have an exact date, but I’m pretty sure that came out at the release of “Lifted” or maybe a little before that. You guys probably already know this, but our friend Kaite did that design (along with the Bright Eyes “Bats” shirt). She also did the linocuts on Lifted, which are awesome. She is the Kaite of the Son, Ambulance song “Kaite Come True” from Oh Holy Fools. She’s a rad person.

  Edited to add: I’m not sure it was actually paired with that album. I think it was inspired by the line “I know a girl who cries when she practices violin”, but not positive. So it might have been first sold between 2001 and 2002 (between Oh Holy Fools and Lifted).