Get Back in Your Honda Civic!!!

new pop-up collage work with musician Lauran Hibberd

Hi guys!

I’m back from my little break—moving is officially done. Thankfully, I’ve been working a lot, and nesting in between projects. (I’ve been sh*tposting about nesting here, just for fun!)

While I’ve got my head down making new things, I want to talk about my process making the cover art for musician Lauran Hibberd’s single, Honda Civic.

Photo of Lauran by Emily Marcovecchio. Pop up collage by me.

I found Lauran’s first album, Garage Band Superstar, on Tidal last year right after it came out—it reminded me a little of Letters to Cleo, one of my favorite bands, and felt like a fun, bratty take on 2000s pop punk (which is Savana bait, considering my intense teenage obsession with Warped Tour). I reached out to Lauran and we ended up working together on the Honda Civic art, and we decided I’d do a pop up collage similar to the one I made of my friend Ryan last year. We knew that a car was necessary in the shot, and Lauran had the idea to include a gas station and place it all in a moody nighttime setting.

As per usual, it took me privately making quite a few sh*t, derivative mocks to understand even roughly how I wanted to lay out the collage (I’m not going to share them because they use unreleased photos!!! But imagine very dinky photoshopped iterations of the final art with various pixelated stock images subbed in for the car and gas station, LOL).

Nothing was really clicking—I kept wanting to make the backdrop a blue sky with clouds (no shit considering it was trendy for so long) and I knew I needed to find a good nighttime reference to pull inspiration from—how could I execute this collage in a way that conveyed the bratty fun of the song, but also existed in this moodier nighttime world? Enter the Rockin’ Roller Coaster (stick with me).

When I was in third grade, my parents took my brother and I to Disney World. For months before the trip, I swore to my parents that I would ride the fastest, scariest rollercoaster in the park—which happened to be a completely insane, totally CAMP, relic of 2003, a concert themed ride starring Aerosmith. I loaded my MP3 player up with a Greatest Hits album and hyped myself up for months (my dad rock phase started and ended at age 9!!!!!). When it came time to actually ride the rollercoaster, I got scared, lost my ever loving sh*t and my mom took this truly incredible photo of me sobbing and begging to get out of line (brb calling CPS 16 years later). Anyway—I rode the ride, I loved it, etc. But the true win of the situation, besides the iconic photo, was the genesis of my lifelong obsession with the completely ridiculous, and I mean it when I say, HIGH CAMP, aesthetics of this ride.

the face of fear

The premise is that Aerosmith is late for their show in Hollywood and you have to race down the freeway to get there on time (I have never felt like more of a f*cking dweeb typing something). It’s all set at night, and you speed through/around UV signs depicting LA landmarks and freeways. Basically—it was the perfect inspiration for this album art.

close your eyes and imagine riding a rollercoaster with susan sontag

Anyway, once I figured that out it all happened super fast. The road should curve and recede into the background, and there should be kitschy neon and road signs along the way.

My awesome little sketch with different colors denoting the layering of the final pop up

Printed out the mock on cheap paper to be sure it was going to work in 3D…reader, it worked!!!!!

this was the final digital mock I sent for approval before printing and hand making the collage!

Once the mock was completed and approved, I printed out the individual pieces of the collage and assembled them in 3d. I taped them to an L shaped cardboard base (lightly, so I could move elements around later), and photographed it with my camera.

Midway through building the pop-up. I kinda love this minimal version so perhaps I’ll explore something similar in the future…

Then I took it back into Lightroom, made my final color adjustments, and here we are! I’m really happy with the way it turned out—it feels like a cool new direction for my work. (By the time this goes live, there should be a TikTok up with some of my video BTS from this process which might be enlightening…who knows.)

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That’s all I’ve got for ya this time. I have some exciting projects on the horizon, so hopefully that means I’ll be able to share more of my process with you guys soon. <3 As always, LMK if there’s anything you’d like to see here in the future.

Talk soon!