The Paris-Based art director and graphic designer Brodie Kaman works primarily within the music industry where pairs moments of visual distress and deconstruction with fine detail. Nine Inch Nails, Lady Gaga, and Don Toliver, among others, are the latest to receive his gritty stylistic touch. Brodie’s graphic world is built upon the pillars of collaboration and connection, and from the granularity of design right across to the wider direction, Brodie knows what he’s doing.
The projects that Brodie takes on are created with a mix of digital and physical – his work shouts that hands are at work. Lady Gaga is stretched and made viscous for the cover of Mayhem, her sixth solo studio album, for which Brodie provided art direction and design, with creative direction from Mel Roy of mtla studio and Todd Tourso of Iconoclast. The star of the show is the logo typography, placed on the back cover and bent in a slight curve, informed by visual histories of the metal music genre. Its jagged yet fluid edges bleed out, replicated in large size on the packaging’s inner sleeve in vivid burnt orange alongside chaotic lettering. The poster insert maintains this ordered chaos, presented almost like a 17th century pamphlet on parchment paper.
Brodie is influenced by iconic artists like Mike Kelley and Richard Prince, as well as the confessional poet Anne Sexton and body horror filmmaker David Cronenberg. For Don Toliver’s fourth studio album Hardstone Psycho, Brodie’s creative fangs come out. The cover takes on its source material’s blend of rock and emo influences, visualising the energy of a hardcore biker melted into steel. This is arguably the best Don Toliver’s music has looked, all down to art direction by Brodie, photography by Idan Barazani and editing by Liron Eini. Together, Don Toliver’s cover art is revved to life.
Collaboration is where Brodie Kaman’s heart lies. Working with creative directors Mel Roy and Todd Tourso again for Nine Inch Nails’ Peel It Back tour art, Brodie’s graphics sing with grit. Textures are scratched in and peeled back. Brodie has a knack for translating the sonic into visual, using textures to distill the energy of the music down to design. Many philosophies drive Brodie, but his work undoubtedly carves a realm of his own, where creation and destruction exist side by side.
