It's been busy here at IC, to say the least, and we haven't been updating the blog as often as we'd like. To make up for lost time, here are a handful of new albums we've been working on over the past 6 months. Enjoy.

WovenWar I've been friends with these guys ever since we toured together in 2010, but never had the chance to work with them on a design level. I couldn't be more pleased with how smoothly everything went. We knew we wanted a cover image that centered around an icon, and the WW mark is something that came to mind instantly after our first conversation. As always, I loved working in simple black and white. Each image is comprised of abstract painted shapes to convey a ink-blot/rorschach vibe. Pre-order the physical package here.

Tedashii Below Paradise Taking a page from the late, great Storm Thorgerson book of "doing it for real," we ventured out into the high desert of Southern California in early 2014 to create this album cover. Caleb Kuhl did a killer job on the photos, Neil Visel was particularly handy with the forklift, and I put too much lighter fluid on the car and we had to call the fire department. Apparently they saw the smoke from a neighboring county. Oops. Grab the physical album here.

Propaganda Crimson Cord Our pal Prop gave us free reign on his (amazing) new album - we wanted the packaging concept to feel as organic and layered as his music. What may look like paint drips and splatters are (mostly) images of his iconic dreadlocks. Our goal was to blend his soul into the art as much as possible - which was inspired by the album title and album concept. Grab the physical album here.

Memphis May Fire Unconditional The guys in MMF came to me with this concept, which I thought was great - that of the bond between father and child. Since my dad happened to be coming to town around this time, I thought it would be a great opportunity to photograph his arm for this cover... and I was able to talk one of my brother's children into giving us a "hand" as well. Grab the physical album here.

The Atlas Moth The Old Believer I’ve always enjoyed creating imagery that is “more than meets the eye.” I also love concepts that allow for some real hands-on interaction. Ideas like this have kept music packaging exciting for me through the years. When The Atlas Moth came to me with a concept that would change the cover image when wet, I thought there was no way we'd get the necessary approval to make it happen. Thanks to the folks at Profound Lore, who, in rare fashion, believe in going the extra mile in the name of artistic endeavor, this amazing idea is something you can now hold (and drench) for yourself. Above are both "before" and "after" versions of the cover. Grab the physical album here.

Lecrae Anomaly One of our favorite clients, Lecrae (and his label - Reach Records), asked us to work on the follow-up to his last album Gravity, which we had the pleasure of working on in 2012. We enlisted the help of our friends at Shinbone Creative to create Crae's likeness in 3D wireframe (spot gloss varnish!) form for the cover. The physical packaging will def. be worth checking out. Pre-order that here.

Killer Be Killed Working with an entire band of metal visionaries isn't something I get to do every day. Needless to say, I jumped at the chance. The aesthetic that we really bonded over, and seemed fitting for this project, was that of crusty, gritty, photocopied punk. The real fringe - Discharge, Man Is The Bastard, Doom, Crass, etc. It was a blast getting to work in a style that I love, for awesome guys that totally get it. Grab the physical album here.

Grieves Winter & The Wolves Another album cover that's more than meets the eye. We worked with Grieves to create something really special for 2011's Together/Apart, and we knew we wanted to do something amazing for this record as well. The actual cover (top image here) features a die cut hole right in the center, where a standing Grieves shows through. When the cover is opened, we see that he's surrounded by wolves. Careful out there, buddy. Grab the physical album here.

Insense De:Evolution I had the pleasure of touring with these guys in Europe during the spring of 2012. We spoke a bit on the road about working together for the artwork on their new record, and I'm stoked that we were able to make it happen. Not to worry - no babies were harmed in the making of this cover. Grab the physical album here.

Over the years, Number One Gun has been a source of creative exploration for us. They've always been great at essentially giving us free-reign, which has allowed us the room to create some work that we're really proud of (thanks, Jeff). For this, their newest digital-only release, This Is All We Know, we created a scene made to look like a page cut from a special Twilight Zone Edition of a 1960s Life Magazine. We started with a pre-printed image and added a mysterious mirrored box, nestled into the setting.

Here's a look at the album cover we created with long-time friend Aaron Sprinkle, for his newest release, Water & Guns. The Album itself is phenomenal, and Aaron, as usual, gave us his unyielding trust to create something with no boundaries but our own imagination. Water & Guns speaks of (among many other things) Aaron's recent move across the country, and his long journey to complete this record. Our idea was to represent two polarizing landscapes using abstract shapes. In this case, all pre-printed materials from vintage magazines. Buy this record.

Our buddy Joby Harris, a visual strategist at NASA JPL, gave our Blast Off! pennant a tour of the facilities in Pasadena. Next time we'll accompany the pennant, but for now this is pretty freaking cool. Huge thanks to Joby for doing this! Above: The Mission Control Room.

The art studio:

At the Mission Formulation room:

At The Spacecraft Formulation Building:

The Mission Control Room lobby:

Here's our album cover for the one, the only Andy Mineo. Heroes For Sale arrives on April 16th. To be continued...

Misc. editorial work.

Here's our cover for Lecrae's much-anticipated new album Gravity. We've been fans of what Reach Records has been doing for years  - so we're pretty excited to be part of this record. And Church Clothes has been on repeat in the studio since it dropped.

Check out the cover we just wrapped up for Sold State newcomers The Overseer.

We got 6 inches of snow yesterday. So naturally Seattle is shut down and I'm chugging coffee while drawing in my slippers. Decided to dust off a few more Grandpa illos in the process. These 5 span approx. 5 decades, with the last one created the same year he passed away.

Here's a few fun character spots for a misc. newsletter, circa late 1940's to early 1950's ...

A mighty big thanks to everyone who came out to our Full Circle show/Leroy C. launch party at Super7 on Saturday night. We had a blast. And as you can see above, Leroy did too.

If you find yourself in SF anytime soon, the show will be up for a few more weeks.

Photos courtesy of Zac Schwiet, Kaiju Chronicle and Toybot Studios.

We're excited to announce that we'll be showing a collection of work at the Super7 store in San Francisco, opening on April 23rd at 6PM. We'll also be debuting the first colorway of Leroy C., the newest member of the IC family! Super7 will have a limited amount on hand to take home.

We'll be sharing a collection of 20+ posters and prints, including a number of illustrations from our late grandfather, Alfred Paulsen. As someone who influenced our work tremendously and spent much of his young adult life in the bay area, we thought it would be fitting to include some of his work in the show.

We'll also have a few new limited Leroy C. prints available. Come out and say hi!

Another spot circa 1970's. Client: Unknown.

Another spot from Grandpa. This time it's Newton. Date: unknown. Publication: unknown.

Found this one just in time. Happy Halloween everybody!

This has been sitting on my desk for 8+ years, so I've been meaning to post this for awhile. This is our Grandpa's old business card for 'Imaginators', his DBA for freelance projects.  I always thought 'Imaginators' was a great name as a kid and have since just assumed someone else has snatched it up. Turns out that I'm right, but it doesn't appear to be for anything substantial. I'm not 100% sure if Grandpa created the letterforms by hand or not, but I've always felt like it fit his style really well.

'Slide and Vu-Graph Illustration' - I love seeing that.

More editorial goodness from Grandpa.

These 3 pieces are some of my favorite from the AP vault. Not only are they a fun batch of mix-n-match monster features, but visual proof that buried somewhere deep within my DNA lies that love of creating monsters. My beloved grandmother recently just turned 86, and as my mom put it - we are 'attempting to mine her memory as much as possible' in regards to grandpa's work. There is just a lot she doesn't remember. My uncle states: "I'm not sure what the purpose was. He may have used them as examples when he was negotiating or demonstrating options to a client". Ahh, character comps. Sounds familiar.

Grandpa was always larger than life to Ryan and I. His career laid the foundation for our love of art. Unfortunately during most of our youth, we lived in different states and didn't get to see him as much as we would have liked. We grew up in Central Oregon while our grandparents lived in a little town called Oroville, about 90 miles south of Sacramento. I remember the yearly visits and the family gatherings at Christmas, but like most families at that time, we didn't have the money to travel often. Unfortunately, my memory of art conversations with him are fairly limited. I just remember always being in awe around him. He had a deep, soothing voice that commanded the attention and respect of everyone nearby. And I remember him always smiling and laughing. I like to think that had something to do with loving his 'job'. But on the other hand, I'm not convinced that artists really differentiate 'job' from 'life'.

In 1989, my father landed a new job in Sacramento. Relocating from a sleepy town in Oregon to a larger city was a big culture shock for me. And ironically - shortly after that, grandma and grandpa actually relocated to Washington state. Grandpa passed away in 1995. I was 20.

At the time of his passing, I was playing music and touring. Being in a band was my life. Art (visually at least) was on the back burner . I knew that it was something I was going to circle back to, but it wasn't in my immediate future.

Now that I'm 35 and have been doing this 'professionally' for almost 10 years, you can imagine how many questions I wished I would have asked him. It's something I can't spend a lot of time thinking about because of the obvious reasons.

I am grateful to have most of his pieces that he left behind, and the many family members who are helping to remember/research where and when these amazing illustrations came from. Many, many, many more to come.

Thanks, grandpa.