this is a story, some kind of a story

Andrew Bird, Useless Creatures, ink drawings and Photoshop

For my graphic design class we had to design a full set of album art for an existing album and I chose Andrew Bird's Useless Creatures. I remember being charmed that he'd named a side album of instrumental tracks "Useless Creatures" back when it came out with the limited edition version of Noble Beast and with this project I thought I could make good use of the concept of uselessness.

On the front is a creature made up of old, defunct, practically useless devices and on the back cover each item is laid out. I did my best to draw them almost encyclopedia-like and have certain items correspond with the song titles (ie.alarm clock with "You Woke Me Up!") The dotted lines on the front are Morse code and I had a track listing on the inside cover in Morse code as well. The old typewriter font (I believe it's Trixie Light) and the textures were added in Photoshop.

And if you haven't had the fortune of hearing anything by Andrew Bird, you really should listen. The only thing greater than his skill with words and a violin is his masterful whistling. The attached track is from Useless Creatures so it's purely instrumental but he has a host of albums worth listening to.

- Nyatiti, Andrew Bird