resistance is futile

i have been assimilated into the myspace hive. it had to happen sometime. *technically* this is the second time around... i had a brief myspace stint a couple of years ago so i could converse with tim easton, whose musical career i've been following since he played the late lamented pine hill farm, like, ten years ago and upon whom i had a raging crush at the time (ah, youth!). almost instantaneously, spambots across the universe were aware of my existence. so, heavy with unrequited crushies and a mailbox full of offers of male enhancement (i know - the irony!), i withdrew from the world's largest single collection of the ugliest webpages *ever*. (the rest of the story: the spamathon halted almost immediately. and i still see tim whenever he's in town. cake = having + eating)

so what, you ask, has drawn me back in? no, not hot crushies on a mcdreamy singer/songwriter/guitarist, as delightful as that might be. it's a graphic design contest. ok, it's for a band poster, but it's not like that, i swear! for reals, i was not even familiar with the band beforehand. i've just always wanted to design album covers and show posters, and i couldn't resist the opportunity to design for yeproc records, who is local and whose bands i tend to like. the added bonus is that the band in question -- previously unknown to me -- has turned out to be awesome. nice!

so, the scoop is that yeproc announced the contest in their last newsletter: design a poster for mercury rev's upcoming release, "snowflake midnight", submit it to the band's myspace blog, and then wait patiently (or not) for the band to choose the winner. as those with myspace experience know, you have to join in order to post anything. so i did. (i feel so cheap ;-))

thankfully, spam filters keep getting better and myspace has taken some measures to reduce spaminocity. but as an added measure, i got a freebie web-based email account for my myspace identity.

and i have to say that working on the poster has been great fun. the whole process of researching the band's visual and musical identities, and conceptualizing while listening to their songs totally ruled. as i said, i've always wanted to design something like this, and attending flatstock at sxsw two years ago only fueled the fire.

you can see the finished product here:

http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=viewImage&friendID=403758813&albumID=459496&imageID=2430067

i'll let you know how it goes (the winner will be announced some time after aug 18).

i'm also submitting a piece to the ARTspark component of local creativity-fest sparkcon (happening in sept). i'm sure i'll soon be ridiculously in demand. ;-)