Listen to “State Line” and other songs on our 2021 Playlist here.
Tell Yourself It’s Fine is the fifth release in our 2021 Hazy IPA Series, and is dedicated to you, the person that got through 2020 each day by saying “This is fine. Everything’s fine”. Inspired by Jeff Rosenstock’s, “State Line”, this collaboration beer draws inspiration from Rosenstock’s album No Dream and the alt sound of the song. First of all, the album cover is sick. I remember seeing it for the first time and thinking, “oh hell ya, this is gonna be fun.”
The melting house and pink base tones were the main inspiration for the front of the can. I loved the look of the hand drawn melting house, juxtaposed over the rainbow gradient with that 90’s 8-bit game text. The contrast of the smooth, melting monochromatic scene against the colorful, pixelated background is such a strange combination, yet works so well with the chaotic theme that “everything is fine”. I decided that this was the direction I wanted to go with the design of the label, and I really wanted to capture the same badassness of the album cover in this collaborative beer can design.
The front of the label features hand drawn text as the main focal point, melting against a pink background with a subtle circle pattern almost feeling like this hypnosis that draws you into the text. Then the real surprise happens as you turn the can and the rainbow gradient is pulled onto the back. I also wanted this to have the melting look, so I incorporated the rainbow as well as some black/white contrast to really magnify the techy look to the pattern. I was really inspired by an artist named Jen Stark who makes this really cool, psychadellic melting art. So using her art as inspiration, I drew my own melting wall with some drop shadow to really add in that layered melting effect. I thought this worked perfectly to tie in the front of the can and that rainbow gradient of the album cover to create a really trippy, techy look.
This was such a fun label to create and really challenged my hand drawn illustration skills. Such a dope artist deserves an even doper can/ beer to share with the world, and I was thrilled to hear Jeff’s enthusiasm with the final product. Oh, and the awesomeness doesn’t stop there. You can listen to Jeff Rosenstock and check out a ton of free music on his donation-based label Quote Unquote Records. A portion of the proceeds from this beer are being donated to the Greater Boston Food Bank.
