Butte La Rose: Album Art for a Van That Broke Down in Louisiana

Portfolio project

Butte La Rose on vinyl and CD. Tenth Mountain Division, 2021.

The brief

Tenth Mountain Division is a Colorado ski-rock band. Their third album, Butte La Rose, is named after the town in Louisiana where their van broke down on an early tour. So the brief was, more or less: make a swamp look like a fond memory.

The cover. A swamp, presented as a fond memory.

The art

A bayou in full color. Cypress, Spanish moss, a gator that has clearly been through something, and the band badge hanging over all of it like the sun. The back cover runs a school bus across a bridge, because every tour story needs a vehicle, and ideally one that still runs.

The back. The bus made it across. The van did not.

The gator, before color. Ink, attitude, no backstory.

The badge became the system: it works as the album mark, the CD and vinyl center labels and a sticker, without anyone having to explain it.

The badge in two colors. Works on a sticker, a label or a shirt.

Full-color badge.

The badge with the swamp showing through. For when two colors feels like restraint.

Vinyl center label. A rose inside a saw blade, because subtle was never on the table.

What shipped

Album cover and back cover illustration

4-panel CD digipak and CD label

12-inch LP jacket, insert and A/B center labels

Badge logo in four versions

Release show promo: tabloid poster, square social and event banner

4-panel CD digipak, closed.

Open. The disc art matches the center label, as is customary in a well-run household.

The release show

The album came out June 18, 2021, with the release party at the Mishawaka Amphitheatre in the Poudre Canyon that same night. It sold out. I am not saying the poster did that. I am also not saying it didn't.

I've been making art for the Mishawaka almost every year since 2010, so this one had a reputation to keep.