Great design by The Great Apes

WORDS: Dylan Culhane PHOTOS: Fay Jackson

Hard rock music doesn’t pop up on our radar all that often. But we think the minimalist, handmade design of the CDs and album launch posters for Cape Town band The Great Apes deserves a mention.

I’ll have to leave the album reviews to music-oriented publications (though, for the record, let it be know that I’m a Great Apes fan) but we think it’s really cool that up-and-coming bands have the savvy to apply well thought out design to their humble efforts, and have the work ethic to produce it all by hand. That’s right – the band is only releasing a limited edition of 500 debut albums, but all the packaging has been hand printed with linocut and ink… in their garage. The boys (Yusif Sayigh, Antonie Gunther, Pienaar Du Plessis, Jacques Stemmet, and Jeakan Coetzee) opted for a handmade look and feel, not only for its cost-effectiveness, but also to align the band’s imagery with their sound.

Jeakan sourced most of the inspiration for the album’s iconography from Northern European druid-era symbolism, and then modified these symbols to create a specific icon for each of the album’s eight tracks. The result is a series of cryptic monochromatic cyphers, each one with its own minor imperfections as a result of the hand-printing process. The final result is much like the music on the album – raw, brutal, mystical, and evocative. To wrap up the album launch campaign, the band commissioned One Horse Town illustrator Simon Berndt to incorporate the album’s iconography into a poster. The band is currently on tour across the country to promote the new album, so look out for them in your town.

Once The Great Apes are back in town, you’ll be able to order albums directly form them, and shortly thereafter they should be available in selected stores. Even if you’re not into hard rock, the artwork alone makes the album worth buying. We hope to see more local bands exploring the potential of design as an additional outlet for their creativity… and marketing, of course.

For more info check out The Great Apes on Facebook.