How can design be a performative act? What insights can be gleaned from a production by approaching it from the perspective of its graphic identity? Ben Schwartz speaks with designer Andrew J.S., dancemaker Kate Wallich, and musician Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius) on their collaboration The Sun Still Burns Here, a lush dance/live music performance coming to the Walker this winter.

In the third installment of Uncovered, a regular series on The Gradient focused on the process and influences behind recent album artwork, we talk with Ecuador-born, New York–based artist Mr. iozo about his photographs for the recent campaign around A$AP Rocky’s Testing.

In the second installment of “Uncovered,” a regular series on The Gradient focused on the process and influences behind recent album artwork, we hear straight from the designers behind new releases from Fever Ray, the label Country Music, and Mouse on Mars.

In the first installment of “Uncovered,” a regular series on The Gradient focused on the process and influences behind recent album artwork, we hear straight from the designers behind new releases from Young Fathers, Against All Logic, and Total Control.

When asked to create imagery for Bon Iver’s 22, a Million, Cameron Wittig was given one rule: don’t show Justin Vernon’s face. Here he shares the process behind the photography, his collaboration with artist Crystal Quinn, and influences on the final product, from Blue Velvet to Francis Bacon.

In 2013, designer Manuel Raeder and artist Mariana Castillo Deball released the catalogue Marginália 1, which acted as a monograph for Rogério Duarte (1939–2016), a Brazilian multidisciplinary artist/designer who played a key role in ushering in the Tropicália movement through his work in design, writing, poetry, visual art, music, performance, and politics. Here, Raeder discusses the process of working with Duarte and how the Tropicália icon has influenced his own practice.

Volume is a new music publication that focuses each issue on only one artist. The first issue, in fact, consists of one essay and one photograph.

We are excited to present an exclusive mix for The Gradient by Frank Lyon accompanied by an essay on the art of the mixtape by Matt Olson of OOIEE.

Justin Vernon assembled a cast of creatives to make Bon Iver’s Grammy-nominated LP 22, A Million. Here we catch up with one such artist, Eric Timothy Carlson, whose design for the album is less a graphic identity than a rich documentation of a network of players, places, times, and tools.