TØPxMM

Being the art director for Twenty One Pilots continues to be a wild ride -- constantly churning out merch graphics, and fighting to keep their ecosystem and overall brand in tact.

Their recent studio session with Mutemath https://youtu.be/JfEFq_NRZu4 offered an opportunity that I thought warranted venturing outside of the brand ecosystem that I've fought so hard to maintain. With respect to the creativity of Mutemath, and the versatility of Twenty One Pilots' songs, I thought I could try and capture the way musical experimentation "looks."

I took it upon myself to go further with the title graphics for the piece. The music they created was something to experience, as opposed to something to easily define. No genre, no concrete structure, just a "stars aligning" moment of creation between two very creative bands.

I combined some symbolism (six dots) along with type that I warped with my scanner -- which created the byproduct of "static" while scanning. I completed it all with my own handwriting. I'm hoping that the finished product accentuates the feeling that the music and video alone gave to me.

There's value to going further, and digging into the content to find deeper levels of meaning. If for no one else, it gives you, the designer, a narrative to design around. People may not understand the story you found, but it certainly fuels you with motivation to create something great.

My TØP creative cohort, Mark Eshleman https://twitter.com/ReelBearMedia directed the whole thing, and let me run wild with the title graphics. As with a lot of these projects, we wanted to take it a step further, and fill these title with life and animation, which is where Chris Schoenman http://schoenman.tv came in. The three of us spend the last month churning through this thing, running on pure excitement to make it something special. The band warrants it, the fanbase warrants it, so we keep pushing.

Check out the studio session here:
https://youtu.be/JfEFq_NRZu4