January 2, 2022...
...was my first branding experience of the new year and one of the most creative I've done. Having the opportunity to work with CRYPTIC (aka Aaron Michael Gabriel) in a studio in Fargo, North Dakota was fun but also challenging as it pushed me out of my comfort zone to create something different than usual. Yes, I've worked with strobes, gels, and LEDs before but this was a whole production from the posing and color selections down to the editing process.
If this is your introduction to CRYPTIC you can find his music on Spotify by clicking THIS LINK. Aaron describes his music as "...a haunting soundscape that might just make you want to dance..." and "...[my] music is a combination of dark undertones and catchy bass drops..." After our first meeting, I listened to some of his music to get an idea of the vibe we'd be going for in our studio session. I had immediate visions of dark reds and blues using heavy shadows while drawing additional inspiration from Illenium's Instagram page. We also needed some formal headshots which allowed me to play around with an idea I've been thinking about for a while. I used an LED light flashing different colors onto a white backdrop behind Aaron while keeping the foreground lighting at a constant. This gave me several different looks and color schemes all in a matter of seconds. It worked much better than I anticipated.
Here are some of my favorite images from CRYPTIC's Branding Session.
-Z.
