Ray Volpe - Logo and Cover Art
Role - Designer, Illustrator
Recently I’ve gotten the chance to work with dubstep artist and DJ Ray Volpe. Ray is always trying to push his style of music further with each new track, and has lately become one of the main artists to watch in the dance music scene. In the Fall of 2020, Ray contacted me to create a logo for him, mainly for use on merch and cover art. This eventually led to even more projects, mainly including cover art and merch designs.
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Our first project was an icon logo for use throughout Ray’s branding. He wanted the logo to be based on a character he had already created named Volpetron, a robot resembles Ray, but with a lot more tubing, antennae, and metal. The logo shows Volpetron’s head with his face in a permanent look of despair; a true sad boy. This logo was paired with various type options for Ray’s merch line, and was printed on series of hoodies, t-shirts, pins, and more.
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The next project was the cover art for Ray’s track titled “On My Own.” He wanted the artwork to connect with the logo and merch we had just released, but also represent the main premise of the song itself. We came up with this framing concept, which includes multiple panels with different work in each. The main artwork shows Ray as a giant, towering alone over an empty city. This illustration is paired with multiple frames showing the title of the song, a miniature poster featuring the Volpetron logo, and a small pallette showing the colors used in the creation of this cover.
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Next up was the cover art for Ray’s track “Over My Head.” Here, we expanded on the Volpetron character mentioned above, giving him a full body based on Ray’s likeness. Volpetron is shown floating above a sea of orange clouds, being lifted up by a stream of light shining over his head. This illustration was then placed in framing, similar to that of the previous cover, and the title was added above. A secondary version was created showing the same character floating in front of a night sky, which was to be used in a promo video later created by Ray.
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Our latest project is for Ray’s double release of “Insane & Turbo Kid,” a two song EP released on Never Say Die records. This cover adds onto the Volpetron concept, showing Ray’s face ripping apart to reveal the silhouette of his robot alter-ego beneath. The illustration style features textured brushes, and an overall sketchy look. Ray wanted this cover to be simple and textured, and after going through a few different color tests we landed on a black, white, and red color scheme. This was, again, placed in white framing in between the title and record label logo.