This year’s Christmas season theme at long-standing client The Village Chapel centers around the word “Glory.” Utilizing a custom pattern, and centering on a type treatment that incorporates the pattern as part of it, deliverables include a bulletin, as well as re-facing the website for the season, as well as a 6′ wide display banner, all shown below, as well as on-screen elements. The season culminates in the church’s amazing annual Christmas concert, which is this Sunday, Dec. 13 (details at the above link, if you’re in the Nashville area and interested in attending).

Kevin Tucker Project In Focus brand, branding, chapel, church, design, identity, nashville, tennessee, tvc, village, website

For the past several years, longtime client The Village Chapel have developed a yearly theme, which ties in to the main visual elements of the church. This has always taken the form of a collaboration with the amazing artist Kim Thomas, who, in this case created sculptures as part of an installation which was on display at the front of the church throughout the year. Collide worked on the bulletin design, incorporating the sculptures via the photography of Allen Clark, playing out theme of “The Postures of Faith” in four parts. See below for the resulting designs, and the installation on display in the church. I could go on explaining, but I think these speak for themselves.

Sculptures & Installation by Kim Thomas. Photo by Allen Clark.

Kevin Tucker Project In Focus branding, chapel, church, design, nashville, photography, tvc, village

While working on the art direction & design for the Larry the Cable Guy project “Morning Constitutions”, there were many over-the-top toilet humor ideas flying around. The idea of “pooping in the woods next to a bear reading the newspaper” was entirely Larry’s idea, and at the photo shoot we played off of that idea in depth. But one of Larry’s ideas, was for a “Where’s Waldo” type of image, where he’s in the same sort of pose, but surrounded by creatures great and small, all… pooping. These presented a bit of a challenge, and wasn’t something we were able to do at the shoot, mainly for budgetary reasons (but also because we were shooting in Minneapolis in November, and for some reason dolphins, elephants, and koalas weren’t readily available for outdoor shoots). So, after an exhaustive stock photo search, we went through several rounds of revisions, on what was to be the inside spread of the packaging (there were other, more crudely illustrated versions than this one). Amazingly, this was almost approved, but at the very last minute, someone had second thoughts, and we ended up with a lovely photo of Larry on stage instead. But now, for the first time, here is the rejected design in all its glory. Enjoy.

The rejected spread from the packaging. Click to enlarge.

The final packaging from Larry's Morning Constitutions CD.

Kevin Tucker Design Process

While Collide was not involved in this video, I thought it’s worth sharing, because it features two good friends: musician Big Kenny, and actor Torry Martin. The video was put together as part of a student competition at Watkins College of Art.

Kevin Tucker Film/Video

First the ADC, and now this. What’s next?!?

Kevin Tucker Design Industry Issues aiga

Just a little visual commentary, based on this recent development:
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/artdirectorsclubnewlogo.php

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In 2001, a few people in Nashville started a little non-denominational church. Now, with nearly 1000 in attendance each Sunday, eight years later the needs of the organization are rapidly expanding. With a congretation that skews toward young, media-savvy, arts-focused individuals, a new website was launched to meet some of those needs, by providing up-to-date info on church ministries and events, as well as connecting the church community. Collide shaped the visuals from the background textures (which tie in with this year’s visual theme & bulletins) to photo treatments and section icons; and TVC’s brilliant Marcus DePaula handled the development, based around the Joomla platform, in addition to managing the structure and content of the site for the church. Take a look at http://www.thevillagechapel.com/. Some of the features of the site include a robust community section, weekly sermon podcast, and scrolling announcements.

Kevin Tucker Project In Focus brand, branding, chapel, church, design, nashville, tvc, village

(continued from Part 1)

Comin’ To Your City

By the time their second album was in the preparation stages, Big & Rich had become quite a success, and there had been many changes at the record label. I was thrown headlong into the second album project, and after we settled on a concept for the cover, I set about getting the final imagery to have the right look. I had in mind a very specific aesthetic for the globe on the cover - a vintage-looking globe with “chunky” topological features and not much other detail. I searched high and low, scouring stock collections as well as antique stores, and just when I was about to give up hope of finding just the right globe, I was on my way to one last antique shop, when, while stopped at a traffic light, I found it on the side of the street.

Left: The globe as seen on the side of a building; Right: The final Big & Rich: Comin' To Your City packaging.

It’s very seldom that a “Eureka” moment happens in the course of a project such as this, but this was one– there it was, mounted on the side of a building. To this day, I have no idea what business had existed in years’ past that warranted a huge globe as part of its signage, but at the time the building was occupied by a cleaning company and an attorney, as I recall, and the globe is still there as of this writing. After some difficulty in tracking down the owner, we worked out a deal, and I had photographer Eric May capture the globe from several angles. (By the way, if they ever tour China, India, or Australia, I’ve got an alternate cover image). The band had put together an outlandish photoshoot independently, utilizing the talents of the recently wed Christiev Alphin as art director & stylist, and photographer Kristin Barlowe, and incorporating everything from buffalos and camels to a bank robbery scene, to… a life-size plastic cow.

Packaging elements for Big & Rich: Comin' To Your City

Sadly, on the day of this album’s release, we bid farewell to Warner Nashville’s Creative Services director Eric Mansfield, who was tragically shot in a carjacking. I had worked with Eric for several years at that point, and though we were only “work friends” I have to say I was very impacted by the tragedy. Eric was one of the kindest people I’ve ever had the privilege to work with, or probably ever will, and I know that everyone whose life he ever touched thought very highly of him. It is some tiny solace, however, to know that the two young men responsible are currently serving prison sentences.

Left: An example of the print ads for the project (this one a 'congrats' ad for their ACM nominations); Right: An industry marketing piece titled "A Field Guide to Big & Rich."

Click here to see the interactive version of the above print piece, created with the help of the very talented Jake Stutzman.

The Pepsi Challenge

The following year, I got a call from the label asking me help coordinate some artwork between the label and Pepsi, who was doing a co-promotion on an upcoming can design. It was unusual campaign, aimed at “Generation Y” and relying on a “discovery” promotional method, in which consumers are intended to mentally connect the dots between the visual clues and a special website printed on the can. It was part of Pepsi’s “Artist Series” which also featured All American Rejects and Pharrell Williams. After several discussion with Pepsi, their agency, the band, their management, and Warner Bros., it was decided that Pepsi would hire me to do the design of the can. Of course I was thrilled, and to date the resulting product has the highest print run of anything I’ve worked on (by several million). It was a complex process involving five different parties with varying levels of approval. Below are a few of the 70+ options presented, as well as the final product.

A few of the 70+ comps presented for the Big & Rich Pepsi can, including a near-final version (bottom-right)

The final product of the Big & Rich Pepsi can.

Coming in Part 3: Super Galactic Fanpak 2, Between Raising Hell & Amazing Grace, Greatest Hits, the Bell Witch, a duel, and an unwinnable board game.

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Made some updates to the Recent Projects and Identity sections of the portfolio today, as well as a couple of cosmetic upgrades.
http://www.collidecreative.com/

Kevin Tucker Company News

Today marks the release of Big & Rich’s Greatest Hits on CD & DVD, so this seemed like a perfect time to take a little walk down memory lane on the past 6 years of working with the genre-redefining band (and brand) known as Big & Rich.

It’s a rare occasion (at least for me) to have worked on every release by an artist from their debut album through their Greatest Hits album, and I’m honored to have that distinction. Big Kenny & John Rich are two of the most talented guys in the business, and it has certainly been an interesting journey.

All 6 Big & Rich releases, designed by Kevin Tucker / Collide Creative

A Horse Of A Different Color

I had been working with Warner Bros. Records Nashville for a little while, having worked on a few projects including a sadly-never-released Neal McCoy album, under the art direction of the late Maude Gilman-Clapham (whom I had had the pleasure of working with previously at Word), and the CD packaging for the first Blue Collar Comedy Tour. Warner Bros. put on a big red-carpet premiere for BCCT at the Belcourt Theatre, and Becky and I attended. At the show, we couldn’t help but notice a couple of odd-looking gents a couple of rows behind us who caused a few distractions during the show (can you imagine sitting behind Big Kenny’s top hat in a movie theater?). Something about them stuck out in my mind, and the next day, I spoke to then-WBR-creative-director Janice Azrak (now a citizen of the great state of Hawaii) about some current projects, and couldn’t help asking who those guys were, and she told me they were a new act who had just been signed at Warner. Now, I’m not sure if it was this conversation, or the fact that Janice had an affinity for what she had seen in my work up to this point, but a few weeks later, I got a call from her to come and meet about their first album.

Honestly, I would have never thought they would have been as successful as they soon became. I liked what I heard of them - it was different and refreshing, and they were even-handed with elements of humor and heartfelt seriousness, all of which appealed to me very much, but I kind of saw it as a niche, and thought it would be a great project to work on. I have never been so happy to be so wrong!

From the beginning of the project, we had the issue of the logo that has adorned all of their album covers. Many people probably assume that this is something I created originally, but, in fact, the original version was created by friend-of-the-band Bob Morris, and and it’s something that I have continually modified along the way, based on the original.

Big & Rich logo evolution, starting with the original logo (designed by friend of the band Bob Morris) and continuing through its Tucker/Collide-modified iterations.

It must be said that I was never happy with having to use this logo, and that I frequently proposed that we create an entirely new one, both on the first project, and on subsequent projects, but they were dead set on using this one, and on being consistent by using it repeatedly on future albums. But, of course, being asked to use artwork from an outside source is not uncommon at all, and plenty of successful acts ave consistently used the same logo treatment on their albums, so I certainly can’t fault them for that decision, and I think a key influence is that their management company also managed the career of Alabama, who is a prime example of this.

The process that led us to the cover for the first album, Horse Of A Different Color, was a long and winding one. Despite many alternative options, we kept coming back to the aforementioned logo, and a “swirl” element that I had created an early promotional sticker which the label, band, and management were all very fond of for some reason.

Early, rough cover mockups for Horse Of A Different Color, and, bottom right, the final cover.

The album was a huge success, thanks in part to the hit “Save A Horse (Ride A Cowboy).” In the initial run, we ran the album in 3 different colors: red, blue, and purple; and the following Christmas, we did a green & red version with snow on the logo (which I think was a bit confusing, myself, because it made it seem like a Christmas album), and the band had a loyal fanbase.

Packaging for the first "Big & Rich's Super Galactic Fanpak" - design by Kevin Tucker

Backwards & Upside-down

Before long, there seemed to be demand for another product, and so the label conceived of the unconventional “Fan Pak” idea - a 2-disc release that comprised a CD of a few tracks of unreleased material (live, remix, etc) and a DVD containing photos and videos. The resulting project, Big & Rich’s Super Galactic Fan Pak was packaged unconventionally, using an idea I borrowed from Beth Lee (who conceived the idea a few years earlier for Squint Records’ Sixpence None The Richer and Burlap To Cashmere albums), where we use a standard jewel case package, but put the inserts in “backwards and upside-down” so that the back/traycard is used as the cover (thus confounding manufacturers and rackjobbers to no end). This made something a little unusual without adding to manufacturing costs. The packaging was inspired by vintage comics and pulp fiction, and the credits were built into something slightly resembling a “game” - an idea which I think we executed much better in the subsequent Super Galactic Fan Pak 2 (more on that later).

In Part 2 of this retrospective: Comin’ To Your City, Between Raising Hell and Amazing Grace, Super Galactic Fanpak 2, Greatest Hits, Pepsi, and more.

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