Valms
Lead Designer / Art Director
Entertainment/Music
Project Type:
Brand Identity & Visual Systems
Illustration
Logo Design
Valms is an indie electronic duo based in Miami, known for their unique blend of rock, 80s synths, and R&B. For their single “Up Your Sleeves,” they sought a vibrant visual representation that reflects the song’s theme of deceit. The artwork needed to be captivating and distinctive to stand out in Spotify’s extensive catalog.
Logo Design
The goal was a clean, versatile wordmark that could work across any context without being tied to a single aesthetic. The logo is built on a custom sans-serif with a subtle detail: the baseline of the "a" is slightly cut off, giving the mark a distinctive quality without leaning into a gimmick. Shown here across three treatments, grainy monochrome, flat color, and gradient, to demonstrate how it adapts across different backgrounds and use cases.
The Concept
The song is about deceit. After learning the theme, I researched symbolic representations and found that across multiple cultures, the squid is considered a symbol of deception. From there, the concept of a squid controlling a hand like a puppeteer felt like a natural fit, something unsettling but visually compelling.
The illustration was sketched and refined entirely in Procreate, where I explored different brush styles before landing on a distressed, grunge-watercolor aesthetic. The final piece was brought into Illustrator where I built out the background and composed the full artwork.
Album Artwork
The central image was designed to hold up at small sizes, since album art lives primarily as a thumbnail on streaming platforms. The artwork was tested at reduced scales throughout the process to ensure visibility and clarity on Spotify, Apple Music, and beyond. The Spotify release is currently live.
Music Platforms
Because the band members were in different states, they shot individual photos separately. I composited the images to create a unified visual, cohesive banners and a profile image that carried the album's aesthetic consistently across all major platforms, as well as large format print materials.
Merch Concept
The merch concept was built around a lyric from the chorus: "Who do you want to believe, the angel on your shoulder, or the devil up your sleeve?" Inspired by streetwear, I kept the palette stripped back and let the typography carry the weight on the back of the shirt. The details connect back to the lyric: a distressed angel wing on the shoulder seam and a dagger graphic at the bottom sleeve. Everything ties to the song without spelling it out.
