Great American House Fire Concert Posters and Record Design

Nov 2018

Great American House Fire was a six-piece midwest emo revival/indie rock/punk band that I co-founded in 2012 with longtime creative collaborator Kristin Garramone. In addition to playing guitar, singing backup vocals, booking and curating events for us to play, and writing and producing most of the band's material - I also did all the design and marketing for the group. Over six years as the bandleader, we played with several nationally known artists including The Sidekicks(Epitaph Records), Tacocat(SubPop Records), Maddie Jo Canino of RVIVR, and Typesetter(4131 Records). Additionally, in June 2017, I curated, promoted, and played the "Queer in the Headlights" festival at the Larimer Lounge. The event was an all-day concert held on the afternoon of Pride Celebrations in Denver. It featured only bands with LGBTQ+ members, and specifically, bands that were vocal about their sexual and gender identities.

The design and artwork style that I used throughout the band was a mixture of hand-drawn and digital illustrations mixed with desolate or lonely imagery which reflected the somber feeling of the lyrics and music. Additionally, I actively built a social media presence on Facebook and Instagram for the band and marketed events and releases from the band on both platforms.

Artwork for the Great American House Fire record 'Promise Me Endings" including the record silkscreen and an alternate design

At the end of 2018, the band released a single sided 12" vinyl record via Snappy Little Numbers Records titled "Promise Me Endings." The artwork featured photography by Melanie Hallgren of moths encapsulated in paper. I continued the moth motif onto the blank side of the records with 3 different colored silk-screened variations. The original concept artwork and design in the bottom left corner was scrapped in favor of a less morbid concept, but I still really loved the illustrations done by queer artist Cass Wolfe and colored by me. The band logo was a hand drawn recreation of Garamond, which I felt combined the hand made qualities I love in the concert posters I had created up to that point.

Cover artwork for the Great American House Fire cassette split with Sophistocated Boom Boom. On the right is a flyer for a show with The Chariots of Judah and Modern Crime

The first release from GAHF was a "Customer Appreciation" cassingle released early in 2018. It was a split with friends and former bandmates Sophisticated Boom Boom and featured 2 different cassette color variations that were matched to the color of the packaging. Drawing inspiration from classic Blue Note Records album covers, I art directed the photo shoot of all the members from both bands sitting around at a "listening party" in cocktail attire. Katie Anhalt captured a beautiful candid photograph of everyone in the middle of a joke. The typography was designed to replicated those classic jazz records, as well as the stark use of color. Bottom left was the flyer for the release show of the cassette incorporating consistent imagery.
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At the far right of this slide is a flyer for a concert in late 2015. The crouching indigenous person was illustrated by hand and digitized. All the bands on this bill had been longtime freinds and had all played in Americana/country bands together at previous points and the illustration represented our shared love of Native American culture and iconography. Strong typography and stark use of color helps make it a very eye-catching and effective advertisement.

A couple of hand drawn Great American House Fire flyers and a few sticker designs.

The Concert Poster on the left was a hand drawn illustration which I digitized and added type to. The record label we worked with had 3 record release parties in Denver over the course of 10 days. attached was the scan of the original illustration without any digital correction. The poster on the right was another had drawn illustration for a show with our good friends in Typesetter. The lineup featured 3 bands with trans or non-binary members, so the illustration is of a pair of individuals(meant to represent trans men and trans women) holding hands in front of a pile of burning clothes. The minimalistic typography and limited pallate make the colors pop even more.
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Down the middle of this slide are 3 seperate evolutions of vinyl stickers that I created for the band.