**Editorial illustration for Emily White’s Substack, 2025**
*Also Featured in Music Ally’s Sandbox*

I spent most of 2025 working with Presidio Bitcoin, but on the side I found myself coming back to music and audio in a more personal way. This set of projects came out of that: working with a friend, exploring editorial storytelling, and distilling an idea into a single, strong image.

Emily White — Substack Editorial

Emily and I met through college radio, and later became close while working in music in New York. What I’ve always loved about her perspective is that she approaches the industry through the lens of fandom and culture, something I think a lot of music writers lose touch with once they're on the inside. For her Substack, we wanted the visuals to feel personal and a little zine-like. She referenced her iPod Nano from high school, a time when music discovery felt more intimate and self-directed, and that became the anchor for the visual direction.

I wanted to create art that reflected the listening experience. Not a literal translation of her writing, but something that felt layered, slightly nostalgic, and human. I looked at editorial artwork from the early days of Rookie Magazine as inspiration. This was a scrappier process than some of my other work, with tighter timelines and smaller budgets, which pushed the work to stay simple and direct in a way that felt right for the format.

One of the pieces was later featured in Music Ally’s Sandbox publication, which was a nice surprise.

Spiral — Podcast Identity

Spiral is focused on supporting broader Bitcoin adoption through grants and open source resources. This project was an extension of their existing newsletter, translating it into an audio format. The idea came quickly. If this is the audio version, make that unmistakable. The audio icon became the core visual device, signaling broadcast, distribution, and reach. I wanted it to feel tech-forward but still accessible, with a bit of personality. Something that could exist comfortably in a feed, but still stand out. This was less about reinventing the brand and more about creating a clear, flexible moment within it, something that could scale as the audio side grows.

Approach

Across both of these projects, I kept coming back to the same idea, how do you translate something as intangible as music and sound into a visual? For me, it usually comes down to reduction, finding the one image or system that can hold the idea without overcomplicating it. Sometimes that looks like illustration, sometimes something more graphic. But the goal is always the same, make something that feels immediate, honest, and actually worth looking at.

Art Direction for Music and Audio in 2025