ART BLANCHE: Pavonine Packaging
With Pavonine Packaging, Brittany Gannon wants to help musicians create “a more creative and special experience” with the packaging of their music. Living up to her word, Brittany’s creations are beautiful, captivating, and -- most of all -- unique.
Almost Elijah - For a Year (via Pavonine Packaging)
As a passion project, Pavonine occupies just about every second of her free time, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I have a more than full-time job and I work on Pavonine every free moment I have,” Brittany wrote in an email. “This doesn’t leave much free time to socialize but I am okay with that. I like to have crappy TV shows playing while I am packaging. I tried getting into audiobooks while packaging but the voices [used to] bother me for some reason. I’ve killed 3 printers over that past two years.”
Despite having been “always interested in art,” it took Brittany a while to find her niche. Less than successful forays into photography, embroidery, drawing, and painting left her looking for more. Eventually, she found her way.
“I was never very good at any of [them],” she wrote. “I knew that I liked how I felt when I was creating but I didn’t find what I was good at until a few years ago with Pavonine. It turns out I can make a lot of cool sh*t out of paper and glue.”
It was in 2012 that she began realizing her prowess with paper and glue, and began a project that would plant the seeds that would grow into Pavonine a few years later.
“I started out doing packaging for my boyfriend's releases as True Key,” explained Brittany. “He always released his music around his birthday, [so] I thought it was a pretty good gift idea.”
True Key - I Want to Believe (via Pavonine Packaging)
Despite doing the work for her boyfriend, it wasn’t until 2015 that Brittany would get the idea to branch to other bands.
“My very good friends in the band Sunrot actually helped me realize the idea of Pavonine. A few summers ago I was helping clean up and paint a local DIY basement venue. Lex [from Sunrot] was down there painting too. On cigarette breaks we would chat and at one point I decided to show them that very first CD packaging I had done for my boyfriend years before. It was on a shelf down in the basement. Lex was blown away by it and that felt amazing.”
“They asked if I would make the packaging for Sunrot's release. Every member of Sunrot is an artist as well as a musician and they all contributed a piece to the design of the packaging. An idea or artwork. They were all so supportive and encouraging of my work that the idea of doing this for other people seemed obvious,” Brittan explained. “Meeting new people is difficult for me so I don't know if I would have started Pavonine when I did if I hadn't had this very positive experience of working with strangers. We are still good friends and I continue to work on the packaging for all of their releases.”
From there, Brittany started to get Pavonine’s wheels rolling by finding new clients as well as developing her own skills so that she could offer more with her work.
“For the first year almost every order required me to learn something new. That was an obstacle I was more than willing to overcome. My day job was only part time still so I had the time to dedicate to figuring out embossing, tape dubbing, Photoshop, pressing shirts, dyeing canvas, marbling tapes, etc.”
Toy Cars – Letters (via Pavonine Packaging)
When working with a band, Brittany approaches her work by building out from what the band brings her so that the packaging complements any artwork that they might already have.
“My biggest inspiration for packaging ideas is the artwork that musicians send in with their orders. Rather than try to interpret their music myself I look to the artwork as already being an interpretation of the music. I am a visual person so it is easier for me to understand images rather than sound,” she wrote. “I look for small details in the order forms to build on. A tie closure, a cut out pattern, a lyric booklet, a shape. My mind takes that one suggestion and builds on top of it until I can see the whole thing. Then I try and make it.”
-Dylan Singleton