A-Trak's remix collection gets in your face with stunning typographic covers that are designed to move.
A-Trak – also known as Alain Macklovitch – is a Canadian DJ, turntablist and record producer who's probably best known for his work with Armand Van Helden as Duck Soup, and their cult club classic, Barbra Streisand.
As well as that, though, he's spent a lot of the last ten years remixing other people's music, and to celebrate he's released a compilation of his remix work on his own label, Fool's Gold.
In The Loop is A-Trak's remix collection, with design by DIA Studio
Entitled In The Loop: A Decade of Remixes, it's a collection that stands out not only because of the music, but also thanks to some amazing design work by New York agency, DIA Studio.
DIA came up with minimal typographic treatments for the whole collection
Handling everything from the packaging for the box set of seven-inch singles through to the individual record labels, DIA has created a powerful and minimal typographic identity for this collection that looks even better when it moves.
The minimalism extends to the accompanying booklet
The most notable parts of the project are, of course, the 12 typographic covers for the singles. Each cover was approached as an individual piece of typographic art, embodying both the music and the track title, and every piece had to work both as a static print and as an animation.
The animated covers are designed to reflect each song's title and music
So as not to distract from the intensity of the artwork, DIA devised a minimal typographic identity for the accompanying 32-page booklet, and to give the layouts an extra conceptual layer, it brought in the looping motif used on the front and back cover of the box.
The end results, we're sure you'll agree, are pretty stunning. You can take a closer look over at the DIA site, and if you want to get really up close then you can buy the limited edition box set from Fool's Gold.
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Jim McCauley is a writer, performer and cat-wrangler who started writing professionally way back in 1995 on PC Format magazine, and has been covering technology-related subjects ever since, whether it's hardware, software or videogames. A chance call in 2005 led to Jim taking charge of Computer Arts' website and developing an interest in the world of graphic design, and eventually led to a move over to the freshly-launched Creative Bloq in 2012. Jim now works as a freelance writer for sites including Creative Bloq, T3 and PetsRadar, specialising in design, technology, wellness and cats, while doing the occasional pantomime and street performance in Bath and designing posters for a local drama group on the side.
