» Matt RuddRamshackle Crow

Matt designed the Ramshackle Crow logo, created the artwork and imagery, and is also leading the graphic design for the iOS app which will accompany the album release.

He is a phenomenal graphic designer. Having rebranded Channel 4 in 2005, Matt went on to give it a fabulous new cubist slant in 2010, and has recently finished working on rebranding ITV (there’s a nice blog post about that here. Yep, he works at that kind of level.

He is also a fine musician who often composes and performs the music for TV channel idents that he designs (as well as playing some tasty blues piano and guitar). He’s just an all-round brilliant guy to be around – inspiring with a humble but kickass energy.

When it came to starting to think about the Ramshackle Crow app, I knew I wanted something really simple and beautiful, but with a classy design edge that spoke of real care and attention at the most minute level of detail. Only one man sprung to mind that I wanted to work with – Matt Rudd. In late 2012, he and I sat down in the Prospect of Whitby in Wapping and I explained what the app idea was over a pint of ale, and asked him if he would like to get involved. Fortunately for us, he liked the idea and we’ve been collaborating on it ever since.

Matt created the graphic design which in turn is informed the user interface, and in fact led to a complete look and feel for Ramshackle Crow and the new site. It was a very fluid process which we enjoyed very much. Watching the tracks with the visuals adds a whole new layer of beauty to this project – the images are from Matt’s considerable library of his own photographs. It’s been very exciting watching it all come together and I think the end result will be magical.

In fact, the entire idea of the app visuals was inspired by a photographic collage series Matt has created called “Imaginary Landscapes”. Here are a few of them: