Papernoise Sketchbook

It’s finally done! The new Mutable Instruments website, on which I’ve been working for the last months is finally online!
This is just the first step of the redesign I’m currently working on for them.
The dingbats and Indian-style decorations have been created by Elisabeth Busani. Thanks to Plangger Patricia for helping out with the logo tweaks and the typography and to Rudy Troger for the programming… and of course to Olivier Gillet for being creator of wonderful machines and for all the input he gave me (of course since this is his website, a lot of ideas came from his side).

check it out at:
http://mutable-instruments.net/

This one you see above is a sticker I designed together with Elisabeth for the French DIY Synth maker Mutable Instruments and his latest incarnation of the Shruthi-1 synthesizer.

This new version is called Yellow Magic and uses a 2 pole, 12db low-pass filter in conjunction with a lo-fi delay effect. Since the inspiration for the filter came mainly from Japanese synths of the past like the Korg MS-20 Olivier (from Mutable Instrumens) decided to go for a Nipponic theme for the graphics on the PCBs and the cases. We created a manga-styled version of the goddes Saraswati (Mutable Instrument’s logo) an imaginary Kamon and various typographic elements.

Btw. you might remember the 4-Pole Mission I did some time ago, the creepy dog I made back then is now available as a print on artflakes.com)

And for the synth nerds out there, this is how it sounds:

Photos by Olivier Gillet – Mutable Instruments

The Octopot is a small 8 knobs DIY midi controller by Frank Daniels aka. fcd72, also creator of the amazing Shruthi XT programmer. I had the pleasure to work with him for the logo (which you can see on the case).

The octopot comes with 8 knobs organized in 4 scenes (which makes 32 controls). It comes with a handy LCD to see what you are actually controlling and with a built-in Shruthi-1 preset.

Photo: Frank Daniels

Graphic design for the latest Shruthi-1 synthesizer by Mutable Instruments

mutable-instruments.net

It’s Friday the 13th, so I can finally talk about this, now that it has been officially released.

In the last weeks I’ve been working for (and with) Olivier Gillet from Mutable Instruments on the graphics for a new Shruthi-1 with a very special filter board. He calles it a Polymorphic filter, since it can be anything you want it to be (for the nerds out there it uses the so called“Pole-mixing” technique introduced in the Oberheim Xpander to provide a cornucopia of filter responses), hence the association with the movie The Thing (the John Carpenter remake) and hence the dog (you will see below).

I designed all the graphic elements for the PCBs and the case and a nice little postcard, that mimics the style of movie posters, just to get the link to the movie somehow.

The 4PM fake poster, with lots of references to the movie. My experiments with Dog Show turned quite useful for this one!

This is the filter board, notice the SMD led on the eye, it glows when the device is in use! (Olivier’s idea)

The best part is the little dog head on the front of the case, with Frank Daniels (the case guy who does all the laser cutting for Mutable Instruments) and Olivier we came up with the idea of putting two leds in the eyes of the creepy dog)

Since I have one of those beasts sitting right next to me on the desk, I think I’ll be doing a little review quite soon!

photos by Olivier Gillet

Cover and booklet design for the experimental music release 45″.  A project that was initiated by me together with Andrea Beggio, and also contains my contribution as a musician (with the Kurodama moniker).

Download 45″ (free)

One more prototype for the It’s the End CD. This will be kind of a deluxe collectors edition where every CD is handmade and unique!

My cover and artwork for the music EP It’s the End was just published on the illustration portal IllustrationServed, you can check it out here: www.illustrationserved.com/gallery/Its-the-End-EP-Artwork