Epitaph Records
Backstory
It was early 2002 when Epitaph Records fell into Mike Buzzard's and my laps. Moreover, the first email introduction from Mr. Brett Gurewitz (Owner of Epitaph, HMIC, Guitarist in Bad Religion) came across while listening to a little morning wake-up "Generator". As two guys who grew up on Bad Religion, we were quite excited, and even more thrilled to be sitting in Epitaph's HQ that same afternoon.
This was an absolute dream job, and allowed us to assemble the team of our choice. We joined forces with the always formidable duo of Michael Schmidt and Token Nygaard (of K10K fame), and also brought in Thomas Brodahl to assist with art direction and UI design. This project was also how we both met Jessey White-Cinis, as he was Epitaph's in-house code and server monkey at the time.
Throughout the course of the project, we were lucky enough to contract Niko Stumpo for wallpapers, Token for icons, Nick Pritchard for a few covers, and Dave Kinsey for a revamping of the Epitaph logo and ID system. (It's worth noting that Nick is now, and has been since 2002, Epitaph's in-house creative director.) Again, the dream team.
We had an absoluteblast building the site, and what's more, this project createdrelationships that eventually turned into multiple successful companiesin Cuban Council, Stolen, and Go Farm (update: closed now).
About the Site
This site was an enterprise level web application, with a custom multi-skin CMS, and a strong template-based front-end design.
As for the design, we focused on low-fi silhouttes of Southern California skylines, the backdrop for Epitaph Records, and their involvement in breaking the mainstream punk scene wide open. Palm trees and telephone polls are all over the site against the red and orange hues of the So Cal sunset. Each page was kicked off with Thomas' amazingly simple and straightforward analog illlustrations, which served as a changing backdrop to the main navigation and helped set the tone for the page (or section).
This is an archived off-line version of the site, so please excuse theplaceholder copy in the news scroller and the missing feature box. Iwill replace these with more fashionable and representative imagery astime permits.
It was early 2002 when Epitaph Records fell into Mike Buzzard's and my laps. Moreover, the first email introduction from Mr. Brett Gurewitz (Owner of Epitaph, HMIC, Guitarist in Bad Religion) came across while listening to a little morning wake-up "Generator". As two guys who grew up on Bad Religion, we were quite excited, and even more thrilled to be sitting in Epitaph's HQ that same afternoon.
This was an absolute dream job, and allowed us to assemble the team of our choice. We joined forces with the always formidable duo of Michael Schmidt and Token Nygaard (of K10K fame), and also brought in Thomas Brodahl to assist with art direction and UI design. This project was also how we both met Jessey White-Cinis, as he was Epitaph's in-house code and server monkey at the time.
Throughout the course of the project, we were lucky enough to contract Niko Stumpo for wallpapers, Token for icons, Nick Pritchard for a few covers, and Dave Kinsey for a revamping of the Epitaph logo and ID system. (It's worth noting that Nick is now, and has been since 2002, Epitaph's in-house creative director.) Again, the dream team.
We had an absoluteblast building the site, and what's more, this project createdrelationships that eventually turned into multiple successful companiesin Cuban Council, Stolen, and Go Farm (update: closed now).
About the Site
This site was an enterprise level web application, with a custom multi-skin CMS, and a strong template-based front-end design.
As for the design, we focused on low-fi silhouttes of Southern California skylines, the backdrop for Epitaph Records, and their involvement in breaking the mainstream punk scene wide open. Palm trees and telephone polls are all over the site against the red and orange hues of the So Cal sunset. Each page was kicked off with Thomas' amazingly simple and straightforward analog illlustrations, which served as a changing backdrop to the main navigation and helped set the tone for the page (or section).
This is an archived off-line version of the site, so please excuse theplaceholder copy in the news scroller and the missing feature box. Iwill replace these with more fashionable and representative imagery astime permits.
The homepage successfully pulled in all of the major blocks of information from the rest of the site: today's events, new releases, upcoming releases, press releases, news, a daily poll, and an exhaustive list of all of the label's bands that were on tour.
All the relevant information, and then some. The "Fan Reviews" section of these pages were highly trafficked, and the "Related News" box underneath the band's picture on the right was quite useful as well.
This was before everyone you knew had a blog, and Epitaph's news section set the pace for all label sites and the way that their news was displayed, read, and interacted with.
