A few months ago I did the art direction & design for Dutch Hip-Hop producer HayZee’s first release, the “Next Level EP”. Since the EP, consisting of 8 instrumental tracks, was made with all 8-bit videogame sounds I decided to design HayZee’s very own 8-bit character. The cover as you can see above, features a start screen inspired by the good old days of the Sega Master System and the NES.

My good friend Nalden, the initiator of the whole project (which is available online for free download through Appletree Records, reached out to my friend Bob Mayata @ NOISE to make a music video following the videogame theme of the release. What followed was a 2:55 mins. animated 8-bit videogame following HayZee himself on his adventures in Amsterdam. Bob Mayata and Boy Wonder @ NOISE truly outdid themselves, and it’s wonderful to see my character design actually running across the screen.

Apparently others share this opinion with me, as the video received great reviews and was featured on sites and blogs across the world. And now we’re also nominated for an award! State Magazine, the Netherlands’ #1 Hip-Hop platform & magazine, nominated the “Press Start” video for a State Award 2008 in the category “Best Video”.

Please help us win this award by VOTING for us!

1. Go to the State Awards website.

2. Press “STEM” next to Hayzee - Press Start , or press “CHECK” in case you want to see the video.

3. A field will pop up asking for your e-mail address (don’t worry it’s not used for anything but a notification and to announce the winners), fill out your email and press “STEM” and you’re done!

Thanks in advance & make sure to check out HayZee’s EP too!

Sometime late 2007 my friends DJ’s/producers Full Crate & FS Green approached me with a concept they had for a mixtape series and wanted me to collaborate on. The idea was simple, they would do a mix every month and I would do the artwork. The finished mix and artwork would then be made available through our mutual friend Nalden’s website in the form of a .zip file.

As I started working on the artwork I titled the project “Mixing Monthly” and came up with the idea of naming each month’s mix after it’s respective month. So January would be “Full Crate + FS Green Mixing January”, February “Full Crate + FS Green Mixing February” etc.

My concept for the artwork was taking the same design but applying a different structure or technique to it each month, loosely inspired by, again, it’s respective month. I made the January cover based on that idea:

The following month however, I was spending a majority of the time in New York visiting my fiancée with my sister. As we had all planned on keeping the releases consistent, Full Crate decided to ask Brian Elstak (MC/Mixin) to do the artwork for February since I wasn’t going to be able to finish it in time for the desired releasedate.

When starting on the March artwork I had to decide on what to do with my previous concept, as it would now miss one month in the overall series. I therefor decided to ask Brian to join the project and take turns at doing the artwork with me. From there on the concept was to loosely take inspiration from each other’s artwork each month.

We’ve just made the September mix available, which originally prompted me to write about the project as I was asked to further elaborate on the story behind the new artwork on Nalden.net. I had originally made a design built up out of 10mm x 10mm paper squares, but the pictures taken of that were accidentally erased off my SD-card. Past Friday we were all at my friend Rory’s (Swurdin) new party “BANGERS”, where me and Rory collectively DJ under the name SUCKERPUNCH and Full Crate and FS Green DJ’d in the lounge.

After our set I went over to the lounge to check out their set and found a roll of masking tape. This gave me the idea to make the design right then and there with the masking tape on the wall behind them. I was quickly told by the bouncer to NOT do this on the wall regardless of me removing it afterwards so I went for a table instead. The result as well as my other covers can be seen below.

Make sure to check out the mixes every month over at the Mixing Monthly website!