A mixed CD is my favourite gift to give or receive for any occasion. My friends are mostly students, and therefore mostly poor, and a mix is one way of guaranteeing that they’ll expend at least half an hour’s worth of energy on my gift. Being a broke student myself, I return the favour. Any birthday to which I’m invited requires hours of playlisting, designing album art, shuffling and organizing. After all, I can’t give the wrong impression. No breakup songs to the person I’m dating, no sexy songs to the dudes in the friend zone, no cliches and no repeats.
As I’ve been a little short on time these past few months, I’ve just been too busy to make birthday mixes. Unless you’ve saved my life more than once, I probably didn’t make you a mix this year. It takes about six hours to do everything, and the results are usually awesome (if I do say so myself). Particularly time-consuming (and rewarding) is the album art. I am really inspired by Mandelbrot sets and other rainbow fractals, and I love spending hours drawing similar designs with Sharpies onto coloured card stock.
The evolution was quick. The earliest example I can find is this one, made for a then-boyfriend’s sister:
My next few attempts at album art were full-out embarrassing. I wanted something colourful and abstract, but just wasn’t quite there.
An engineer friend of mine showed me pictures of Mandelbrot’s fractals, so I decided to make one for my favourite engineer, just to try it out. The results were overwhelming.
What followed was a whole series, culminating in a record-sized art piece for #HaroldTheHerald.
And some non-Mandelbrot stuff that I still thought was cool:
(Ruhee’s was probably the most complicated one so far. I don’t even know how it turned out that way)
A few days ago, Maddie had her 22nd birthday. Known for her awesome birthday gestures, Maddie and I have been really close since we met on the coolest night of my life in 2005.
Yesterday I mailed this to her. It’s a little different still – plainer, more emphasis on colour rather than shape. I wanted a 1970s feel… I think it will be the last Mandelbrot-inspired album art I’m going to make. It feels like the end of an era, but I can’t think of anyone more deserving of the 10th and final Mandelbrot Mix. Hope she gets it soon!
Here’s the title track, for those of you who aren’t Maddie:
Here are some other highlights since my last post:
They’re grey handmade plastic frames by OGI and I’ve coveted them since I started working at my store. They WILL be mine.
Now, to get ready for the party…
Tags: colourful stuff, Glasses Model, HaroldTheHerald, Maddie, music, not hip enough, pictures, pretty okay, too much media
I knew that was Lena! Only because I’m obsessed with this song: http://youtu.be/VkmncrAPILw and Lena’s the one who won the Eurovision contest that year.
Rayanne, that man playing saxophone is my new favourite thing. I love Lena more than life, though. I’ve done “Satellite,” the song that won Eurovision that year, at karaoke about four times.