Solid States: how I got my freelance dream job

Warning! Grammar mistakes!

Music is a great source of inspiration. That's a fact.

Music is sound and silence. It doesn't exist before you start playing. Or before you push 'play' on your device.

As soon as it is recorded, it can get its physical carrier. As the latest can be a physical body, humans can touch

and see it. So, the way it looks matters. There are album covers.

'Why I didn't think about it when I chose the thesis topic?’ I cried out once. 'Enormous number of pictures designed to attract attention, on the one hand, and to be a perfect frame for the immaterial object, on the other hand. So many subjects to analyze, from style to marketing tricks. Static visual art as a satellite of dynamic performing art...'

'Both are the products of the basic human instinct for harmony, the first must harmonize with the second... It would be like dropping a bomb. Some people are so conservative', my friend continued.

Several weeks after that I was sitting at our office in the huge and empty 18th century mansion. I had nothing to do at all. I was bored out of my mind. Thank heavens, I had the Internet. That's how I stumbled into "design an album cover for The Posies" contest. There was a project brief. There were suggested theme and style guidelines. I found them rather interesting but, to be honest, I knew what to do before finished reading. Literally, it was like a vision. Composition seemed to be perfect. I made a… well, let’s say a sketch.

I asked myself many times, if there was any sense in drawing a landscape with a lighthouse, later I understood my attention was captured by the idea that all things change and nothing is solid.

Actually, light, clouds and water are extremely changeable (ignore the fact water can be solid).

So, I had a clear idea of the image, 7 days (nights) to draw it, and still hesitated… because of the song.

‘Squirrel vs Snake’ had nothing to do with a lighthouse, while there were some marvelous works among the entries...

I listened to that song again, concluded 'not bad' and took my pencil. The next day the 'not-bad-tune' was playing in my head constantly. Perfect.

On Day 3 I decided that drawing a million dots would be quite ‘frenetic and frantic, but also mathematical’ process. It takes working with mathematical precision and being a bit obsessed. A wrong move turns a dot into a comet (a bunch of comets causes a disaster: the inscription ‘f***f***f***’).

On Day 6, I was working with the scanned copy, removing comets, pasting the lettering, when I suddenly felt I got tired. I wanted to go to bed not at 3 a.m. ‘Well, the only way to get what you want is to finish this’, said my rational part.

‘Or just give up’, added the irrational one. ‘No way!’ I thought.

On February 10 (the very last day) I submitted my picture and forgot about it. Therefore, when I got the email ‘your design has been selected’ 2 weeks later… well, I was excited. Bewildered. Totally lost control. What? Who? Me?

Could not fall asleep.

The band wanted the picture colored.

The band wanted the backcover with a handwritten tracklist.

The band wanted the booklet with illustrations in it.

I wanted to know how it happened I had never heard of them before. What a shame!

They gave me almost total freedom.

I had an amazing Art Director.

My hands were shaking when I was writing the tracklist.

I declared war on ‘S’ and ‘G’ (there are no similar letters

in Russian. Those ‘S’s on the cover were my allies: in fact,

they are integral signs from mathematics and calculus).

My software declared war on me and didn't work properly.

I haven’t slept for 3 weeks and started to look like a panda.

A very happy panda though.

My laptop said ‘adieu’ on the last day and died.

I was a little bit upset when this creative adventure was over. However, the real adventures were not.

On my birthday I received an email from Ken Stringfellow informing me that we could meet in Moscow. I got my signed copy of Solid States and an invitation to the show (that's another story).

Moreover, later an airline ruined my plans. I got angry, googled ‘direct morning flights from Moscow’ and thus booked the flight to Cologne (instead of Vienna). Then I browsed through all these 'the top 10 things to see', clicked ‘Kultur’, clicked ‘Musik’ and saw... 'The Posies, 1.11.2016'

Somebody up there likes me.

The club was small and the gig was like an explosion of pure emotions. Fantastic.

They said I had freely ignored their guidelines… and pulled me on stage (guess who was about to lose control again)

I met people who told me they had bought this album only because of the picture. Hmm, I'd buy it even if it was wrapped into yesterday’s newspaper.

I started this post declaring music can inspire.

The original artwork was inspired by black&white winter in a frozen city, stripy factory chimneys and lure of the sea.

Then music came and brought the colors.

Words can't express how thankful I am for this experience.