As I said on the landing page, music and design are incredibly similar. They sit in the same category of creative expression. One through vision and one through sound. With The Fuze, I'm able to do both at the same time.
The Fuze is the band that I'm currently playing in as the bass guitarist, but I'm also the resident visual artist. I have a hand in creating everything that has The Fuze name on it (unless I'm performing of course). Making all of the visuals for the band has become a passion project for me now that I've been given the ability to "fuze" my passion of design with my musical hobby. It's simply the best of both worlds.
The creation of the logo happened well before we knew what the band was going to be, all we had was the name. A few ideas were thrown around like a lightening bolt, using a handwritten font, and even using a fusebox with no name.
Instead, we decided on using this typeface and tweaking the serifs on each letter to create the illusion that the letters are all connected, symbolic of the "fuzion" of four completely different musicians.
Website can be found at thefuzebandny.com
Website creation, to me, has always been a daunting task. They hold a lot of information that needs to be updated periodically while keeping the design as clean and discreet as possible.
With this website, my main struggle was deciding how the band should be presented. I had to decide, are we a stock cover band, or should we demonstrate our true selves. So, I chose the hero image to be inviting, since we are simply a couple of friends who play music together.
The website is also used as a portfolio of sorts so adding in a page to read about our music, videos from shows, and a spot to read about who we are was important for me to include.
Our self titled first record was musically rushed. We gave ourselves a deadline that we needed to hit, which meant the album cover was sidelined heavily in the creative process.
What we wanted to achieve for the cover was the "at home" feeling. So, I tore apart the living room, rearranged the furniture, and made a mock living room inside of the actual living room. What I didn't take into account was the white wall behind us.
The main design element that wasn't accomplished in the standalone photograph is the frames on he wall. For those I took the covers from each of our own solo albums (for reference, I designed both the one in the purple and black frames) and placed them onto the wall with a photograph of our drummer, since he wasn't around for the shoot.
A collaborative flyer with Onyx Creator
For every show that we play, there's always someone who asks for a flyer. That could be the venue, a friend, or even a random concertgoer. Typically, this is the only time I get full creative freedom. Fully blank slate. I take advantage of those incredibly rare moments.
