New NMF highlight playlist

Additional cover design system

I've decided to distinguish my favorite tracks and projects of the week from the selection of tracks included in the New Music Friday playlists. With this I can provide both the list of what I am listening to this week, and what I think others SHOULD listen to. Of course this means a new playlist, which means a new playlist icon. I've decided to maintain a colour palette for the respective week, with the gradient and backgrounds staying the same, but now with a star icon to symbolise the highlights.

With the addition of highlight playlists, hopefully this drives me to start writing a bit more intently about the new stuff every week, and thus make it even more interesting to dive into contemporary releases.

I probably wont retroactively add something like this for past NMFs, but it is something I will try maintain in the future, although these may be more delayed and at times inconsistent, but I will try my best.

Iceage - For Love of Grace & the Hereafter

Album Branding Redesign Project

The branding for 2026 post-punk album “For Love of Grace & the Hereafter” by Iceage, is aptly minimal and raw in aesthetic, but definitely lacks the punch and intention an album of such high quality deserves. Rockstars of this kind often leave this part of their efforts minimal or even blank, as it does not reflect an important part of their efforts as a musician, but sometimes the key difference between a classic album identity is sometimes simply its presentation. My goal is to try to emphasise the ideas and themes on this project through artistic design mediums of a familiarity that is my own. There are some very obvious aesthetic qualities immediately present on some aspects of the current presentation of the album, and it's extremely important that none of these are lost. As whatever minimal aesthetic intentions are already there, should only be exemplified and intensified. When possible a stronger link or connection to previous album aesthetics from the group should be made, helping maintain their sense of identity and in turn sell the idea of the band to its longtime fans, as well as properly establish new fans. A preemptive analysis of both the music and identity of the project are required, and some aspects of the broader ideas of the band at large. The purpose of this project is to bring out the stronger aspects and aesthetics of a very singular artistic endeavour in mediums that would only contribute in a positive and reinforcing manner, while enabling myself to explore such mediums and their potential relationship to the album. For this project I will pursue a somewhat rigorous documentation and reflection of the whole process, going further in depth into the groundwork and analysis to enhance the final product beyond merely my skills in art and design.

Starting 2026.

A scarf requires at least some semblance of a way to test the look and aesthetic of wrapping and folding a design around a neck. And with some surface level research through the immediate results on an AI powered internet, the results are disheartening. But maybe I am used to free templates and mockups sustaining me at only an infant stage of a design journey that probably now deserves something more, especially with the burden of a degree lingering behind me. The standard has risen, and with it some methods have sunk beneath what I now consider myself capable of, or at least where I define the line. That’s why I have decided to investigate methods of mocking up fabric designs in a way that allows me to efficiently test a design, without the use of AI. AI still leaves me puzzled as a methodology, and I cannot yet define the border that lies between tool and ideation. So for now I plan to stride forward in the hopes that my values and definitions will become more stringent as time goes on, especially if I plan to investigate contemporary non AI methods (scary 3D donuts and intensive material renderings most likely). Though my gut feeling is that I’ll probably fall somewhere in a position that could be compared to classical training in art. Learn the programs, and with the learning a deeper understanding of purpose and function could emerge, just like learning the basics of perspective or anatomy may not define what an artist would call abstraction when actually conveying an artistic purpose. I might be overcomplicating what is simply just a venture into new design programs, but for me, I see some potential value in defining my reasoning somewhat along the way. I would like to be the old man who can do it the old way for the sake of doing it the old way, and I think others can see the value in that.