Music fans are a tricky bunch to buy gifts for. I’ve learned this firsthand, mostly by shopping for a few in my own life every December, but also by being one myself. You’ve probably run into trouble with this, too. It likely won’t do to buy the music fans on your list any old record…
Hi everyone! Today, I am thrilled to welcome new D*S guest writer Rachael Maddux! Rachael was an editor at Paste magazine until its recent print closing and I was delighted to discover that she is equally passionate about music and design. So today she’s joining us for a guest column called “Sights & Sounds” that…
Photo by Grant Wilkinson Lupe Núñez-Fernández’s paintings look effortless, as if the inky brushstrokes rendering pensive humans, curious animals and bleeding landscapes were applied in just a few deft wrist-flicks. But her relationship with art is hardly casual: in addition to technical training, Núñez-Fernández holds a PhD in modern art history, and over the last…
Looking through Nate Duval’s portfolio, it’s almost hard to believe that all of his concert posters, band t-shirts and album covers (plus art for national ad campaigns, corporate identities and more) are the work of just one dude. But his self-imposed chameleonic nature is one of the things we love most about this Massachusetts-based designer,…
Austin, Texas-based illustrator and animator Divya Srinivasan is the kind of artist who, after you learn her name and start digging through her portfolio, you might realize you’ve encountered all over the place without ever connecting the dots. In part, that’s because she’s, well, kind of just all over the place (I just realized I’ve…
Sam Beam was working as a film professor when he started making music as Iron & Wine about a decade ago, recording hushed, poetic love songs into a four-track machine with just a guitar and a little bit of banjo to accompany him. Beginning in 2002, he released three albums for the venerable independent label…
Laura Ballance and Mac McCaughan have been making art longer than they’ve been making music, and they’ve been making music for quite a while. The Chapel Hill, NC, music-scene figureheads first formed frazzly DIY rock band Superchunk in the late 1980s and have played together on and off ever since, most recently returning after a…
Just a few years ago, The Avett Brothers (brothers Scott and Seth and non-brothers Bob Crawford and Joe Kwon) were making raggedy, punk-inspired bluegrass on tiny North Carolina-based record label Ramseur Records. Not too many people knew who they were, but their fan-base seemed to grow every time they hit the road as they won…
