Catalinbread Effects
I've made some great friends through my many years in the underground music community and those friendships have led to exciting creative collaborations like the illustration work I have been doing on contract for Catalinbread Effects.
They create boutique audio pedal effects units with visionary tone innovations and I have tried to match their exceptional pedal-craft with illustrations and branding worthy of the circuitry and tones they produce.
Knight School Fuzz
This was the first pedal they approached me to design. They wanted a DIY element for the art since the pedal came as both a DIY kit-build for aspiring home pedal builders and a complete plug-and-play unit. I had fun with the hand-lettering and positioning the illustration to work well with the control elements.
What I did
• Concept
• Illustration
• Typography
• Hand Lettering
• Branding
• Logo Design
• Competitive Analysis
• Mock-ups
Tools
• Illustrator
• Photoshop
• Procreate
• Sketchbook
• Ink Pens
Katzenkönig Halloween Edition
I was asked to reimagine the original art (on the left below) for the 2023 Halloween season. I took the essential elements and shapes and ran with the illustration style for my final version which appears on the right.
The demonic cat has left only the bones of the rat and the banners of the "cat king" (katzenkönig's meaning in German) in front of the red sun have been replaced with a trident in front of a blood moon. An additional easter egg detail is the Catalinbread "CB" runic monogram etched into the poor possessed cat's forehead!
Legacy Design (not by me)
Legacy Series Logo
Catalinbread later approached me to help them redesign some of their early flagship models to honor the pedals that they started the business with. I combined elements of their original logo with the newer logo to create a legacy logo for this series.
Super Charged Overdrive
This pedal was the first in that legacy series and needed to showcase nods to the hotrod car aesthetic and 70s typographical treatment of the original while fitting in with the contemporary design system the company has evolved.
CBX Gated Reverb
Influenced by the rack-mount units of the 1980s that this pedal's audio design is based on, we rolled out this pedal for all of the true reverb lovers out there.
Reflections
As a guitar player and total gear-nerd myself, this evolving design relationship has been one of my favorites so far. I am excited to create more illustrations and branding that complement the designs their brilliant audio team comes up with!
