Designer of the Day: Shannon Palmer

This blog is a work in progress.

The world of music blogging have become vast and complex in the last few years. While thousands exist, only a few have made a material impact large enough to actually change the face of music. Arguably, the sole front-runner in such a change is Daytrotter.com. The sites daily updates and frequent exclusive live recordings from indie all-stars have made the site a hot ticket.

But perhaps what makes Daytrotter the most famously unique is the earthy and beautiful illustrations of the featured artist that appear on every article and post. Behind the vast archive of these drawings is artist and graphic designer Shannon Palmer.

First some brief info thanks to Daytrotter:

"She spent her high school years drawing pictures of her favorite bands while the ‘cool kids’ were out somewhere drinking beer and making out. In an interesting turnaround, she spent her art school days drinking beer and making out while the ‘cool kids’ were drawing stuff. She spends her days doing graphic design for a local newspaper, her afternoons writing about indie rock and sharing her favorite music on her mp3 blog, and her nights (you guessed it) drawing pictures of bands for daytrotter.com."
-http://www.daytrotter.com/about

Like Illord, Palmer finds a distinctive way to combine an artists sound with their portrait. Pastels and plaid for calm strumming and splotchy and jutted for louder tunes.
Her work combines the smooth strokes of water color with the realism of graphic design to create a inventive way for art and music to walk hand-in-hand.

The expanse of Palmer's work is astonishing as a quick look through the archive section of Daytrotter presents almost every indie heavy-weight in thier distinct style. Matched with her signature empty speech or thought bubbles, one can almost feel the artist in detail in front of them as Daytrotter's live recordings play.

While she has other work as a graphic designer I would say her job at Daytrotter means Shannon Palmer has one of the most fun jobs in music journalism.

Here's the advice:
make some tea (with nectar honey and coconut milk), listen to the Six Parts Seven (or think of any band you like), curl up pretending your laptop is a nice book, peep Shannon Palmer's graphical interpretation of the artist of choice, be chilled.

For further studies:
http://www.daytrotter.com/
http://shannon-palmer.com/
http://art.shannon-palmer.com/