Born of a conversation with friends, the accidentally-coined band name Dollhouse Arsonists sparked an idea for a 2000’s revival alternative band logo and merchandise package.
Inspired by the likes of Paramore, Sum 41, Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance and a dash of Pussy Riot, I created branding and merchandise package for a new-on-the-scene EP album. It pays homage to early 2000’s punk and alternative with a fresh but nostalgic look for a band whose name infers the aggression emblematic of punk and indie rock culture. Playground pyromania—potentially dangerous, a little dramatic, and sure to be called “racket” when blasted through speakers in your parents’ garage.
I began the visual identity for the album with the color palette. Charcoal black brightened by pops of the classic punk purple and a fiery orange-red and magenta.
The typography formed from some play with fonts and letters: a ransom-note style cutouts for the band name and Bad Typ, a mix-case font titles. Bad Typ mimics both the randomized size of collaged letters, and the refusal to follow rules inherent to the punk genre. A default Myriad Pro for standard copy rounds out the low-budget brand with a font that comes pre-loaded on basic computer software.
Like any good band starting out in their mom’s basement, the band logo evolved from playing with cheap, accessible materials; grainy photocopies of letters cut out of magazines and pasted onto black paper–dried glue smudges and all.
Inspiration for the other album visuals came from the unique feel of many early 2000’s pop punk, indie, and punk albums. Hearkening back to the early days of Photoshop 1.0, punk graphics tended to be rough collages; layered, filtered, and partially hand-drawn. Many included textural elements of fibers or paint interwoven with photographs and blocky san-serif fonts.
The lyric book and CD contain more life-like images of a dollhouse on fire; photoshopped images of miniature rooms ablaze, and, on the back, a porcelain doll caught red-handed in the act of dollhouse arson.
The tour poster—a collection of real basement venues scattered across small-town America paired with niche punk and indie openers—features a flame effect, engulfing the bottom of the poster.
A screen-printed tote bag showcases the band’s title treatment as a monochrome print, overlaid with a sketched match set ablaze.
The branding package rounds out with an EP vinyl sleeve of the dollhouse ablaze with felt fire, and some sticker designs sure to be slapped onto guitar cases, notebooks, light poles, and bus stops.
Dollhouse Arsonists are the next big thing in indue punk revival, and you have a front row seat to their bespoke branding.
