The Acid House Mid-Century design remix project
Acid House.
Techno.
Drum ‘n’ bass.
Trance.
Warehouse raves.
Second Summer of Love.
Superclubs.
Berlin.
Detroit.
Cream.
Hacienda.
Ministry of Sound.
Tresor.
E-werk.
Roland 303 / 808 / 909.
Akai S1000.
Technics SL1210.
Creamfields.
Essential Mix.
Love Parade.
These are probably some of the last things you might think about 1950s & 60s mid-century modern graphic design on record sleeves, magazine covers, travel posters and more.
And to be fair, acid house and MCM couldn’t be further away from each other in aesthetic - many house and techno records had little or no graphic design to speak of - many were just white labels - so I’ve redesigned some of my favourites with a MCM styling to show how they may have looked if these veritable classics had been released in the 50s and 60s.
This ongoing project joins my love of late 80s - early 00s house, techno, trance, dnb and electronic music in general with the abstract stylings of mid-century era graphic design. Circles, rectangles, shapes and abstract interpretations of sound were the order of the day to visually describe to record shoppers what the music sounded like in the days before wall-to-wall media saturation with YT or Spotify.
Each one of these records were actually released - some were huge chart toppers, some were strictly for the underground.
What’s Schudelfloss?
An absolutely banging tune by Dr. Atomic on Guerrilla Records from back in 1993.
About me
The vast majority of my day to day work is in high-end technical 3D animation, motion design, VFX and compositing, so doing something like this is an engaging switch from digital flexing with C4D, Redshift, After Effects and whatnot. It’s always good to find out about the production processes in related fields, or how designs like this were done in the first place 60-70 years ago, strengthen typographic skills and whatnot.
Saying that, the first one of these designs I finalised was Strings Of Life and to “launch” it, I ended up spending something ridiculous like 3 weeks around other jobs animating a keyboard playing, falling audio cables and dancing speakers in 3D…
How it started…
Once I'd finished on a Blue Note inspired alternate cover for this rousing house classic, my plan to animate something quick to go along with it quickly snowballed into an almighty mess of a project.
First I edited the tune to a managable 48 seconds, then made a rough animatic to get some camera moves down and to work out how many violin stabs/attacks there are (23), which got me to the end of the build-up.
Next, the keys have to be arranged a particular way if I want to animate them. There's 3 main types of white key, which need to be arranged in a set manner as real pianos are, and then the black keys have to sit into each space between the keys.
Eventually I got it to work out for me, it took a couple of days coming back to it every now and again - I'd be lying if I said this part was fun or a joy to learn, as it absolutely sucked. If you're going to animate a piano, it's got to look the part and this was a total and utter ballache, as I can't play the piano.
I found a YT tutorial, compressed to 144P with 1982 graphics quality, on how to play Strings of Life, so I copied the keys I think the guy played and eventually, managed to line it up. Not a fucking chance of getting some cool automated setting with a sound effector to animate the keys, or doing it with a noise layer, or even a Wild West style piano punch sheet.
All keyframed.
Luckily, that piano break is only 11 seconds long, and it loops *relatively* easily. And then there was the rendering. Using Redshift on 2 x Titan X and 1 x 980Ti, most frames took 60-90s each, so overall, it took aaages, with several shots needing re-rendering, of course. Or for some other shots, I only worked out I needed them at the editing point. Compositing, not so difficult. I added stock dust and smoke instead of doing it via 3D as that would've taken even longer to set up and render - at this point, it just needed to be done!
Commissions:
Yes, I do. Obviously acid house, techno, trance, dnb and assorted electronic awesomeness from 1988-2000 tends to be my thing, so if you would like a custom design for a favourite tune for yourself or as a gift, then get in touch.
As this is an ongoing project, I have a large stash of upcoming images in the pipeline, some more ready to go than others - hit me up if there’s a tune you’d like to see designed.
My motion design work is at www.ciaranoconnor.com, so check that out for more visual treats in the realms of VFX, 3D animation and compositing.
Contact me
About pretty much anything - your order, your favourite record cover from the 60s, what your favourite house tune is and why it’s For What You Dream Of, whatever, it’s up to you.
schudelfloss.studio@gmail.com
Based in Dublin, Ireland.