D. Norsen Design

D. Norsen Design Art Director & Designer. Inspiration & personal work. Clients: Jerry Garcia Estate, Light in the Attic, Aquarium Drunkard ... etc.

New work for - this new subscription cd-only Magnolia series was teased last week but now the first three titles are an...
12/23/2025

New work for - this new subscription cd-only Magnolia series was teased last week but now the first three titles are announced! Pot Valiant ‘Transaudio’, Majesty Crush ‘Love 15’ and Should ‘Feed Like Fishes’. All have been cleaned up of their horrific 1990s print dot patterns and look better than the day they were designed. Spots for the subscription are disappearing quickly - don’t be caught with your JNCO pants down!

Thank you everyone for the kind words concerning the passing of my beloved Intern Creative Director. I went full freelan...
12/17/2025

Thank you everyone for the kind words concerning the passing of my beloved Intern Creative Director. I went full freelance in 2017 and he has been my daily companion every day since. If we have had a zoom or phone call together you have experienced him crashing it to see who’s on the other end. If you have stopped by the house you have probably been knocked over or had your baby’s socks stolen like what happened to a few years ago. I gave him the title Intern Creative Director because I’ll be honest it’s lonely working for yourself. I talked more to him than anybody else and he would just sit there with his big dumb goofy smile. I will miss him coming into the office around 10am nudging my hand that it’s time to go outside or passing gas and leaving the room like a coworker that likes to play pranks. I was lucky to spend so much time with him even when he would drive me nuts starting sh*t with the cats or when I would find him feet up in the air snoring on the couch without a care in the world. I had a dream last night we were playing ball outside. He was so happy and so was I. Then I woke up and realized it was all a dream and I just started crying. So today marks the first day of an empty office. Mine and my family’s heart is broken but if you have your own ‘best ‘worst’ friend’ (my long standing joke of our odd couple situation) hold them and love them when you can. RIP to August Phife Dawg Norsen (and yes his middle name is a nod to Phife from Tribe Called Quest)

Thank you everyone for the kind words concerning the passing of my beloved Intern Creative Director. I went full freelan...
12/17/2025

Thank you everyone for the kind words concerning the passing of my beloved Intern Creative Director. I went full freelance in 2017 and he has been my daily companion every day since. If we have had a zoom or phone call together you have experienced him crashing it to see who’s on the other end. If you have stopped by the house you have probably been knocked over or had your baby’s socks stolen like what happened to a few years ago. I gave him the title Intern Creative Director because I’ll be honest it’s lonely working for yourself. I talked more to him than anybody else and he would just sit there with his big dumb goofy smile. I will miss him coming into the office around 10am nudging my hand that it’s time to go outside. I was lucky to spend so much time with him even when he would drive me nuts starting sh*t with the cats or when I would find him feet up in the air snoring on the couch without a care in the world. I had a dream last night we were playing ball outside. He was so happy and so was I. Then I woke up and realized it was all a dream so today marks the first day of an empty office. Mine and my family’s heart is broken but if you have your own ‘best ‘worst’ friend’ (my long standing joke of our odd couple situation) hold them and love them when you can. RIP to August Phife Dawg Norsen (and yes his middle name is a nod to Phife from Tribe Called Quest)

For my best worst friend. The Oldie Goldie. The Intern Creative Director. Or more commonly known by his government name ...
12/17/2025

For my best worst friend. The Oldie Goldie. The Intern Creative Director. Or more commonly known by his government name August Phife Dawg Norsen. Thank you for letting me be your Dog Father the last 9 years. You made me laugh, cry and everything in between. Thank you for that loud fishy chocolate burp in my face right before our final goodbye. You were the best family dog and we were lucky to find you, as you were to find us. We will all miss you beyond belief. (Thank you who have sent us messages we appreciate it. If you got to spend time with him you know he was a special one).

New poster work for long time buddies who are also long time buddies too - and . They are doing a little 20th friendive...
12/16/2025

New poster work for long time buddies who are also long time buddies too - and . They are doing a little 20th friendiversary California run through the Caspar Inn and (also run by long time buddy !). When working on this last week I had mantra ‘We’re all just walking each other home’ running though my head thanks to this 2006 picture by fellow long time buddy of all these long time buddies - and that’s all I have to share about that as the poster does the talking and walking. HERE’S TO LONG TIME BUDDIES!

New work for - Introducing Magnolia: the Numero Group CD Club. Some of you want to see this format finally disappear wh...
12/10/2025

New work for - Introducing Magnolia: the Numero Group CD Club. Some of you want to see this format finally disappear while some (many) of us have never stopped buying and supporting them. Have you noticed in the last year, especially, more people digging through the cd bins? They are cheaper, smaller, don’t break up the long songs and they don’t skip when the pressing is a bummer. Magnolia takes 12 essential releases from the Numero catalog with restored artwork (maybe even expanded artwork with extra tracks?) and packs them in those classic cd boxes while wrapped with a deluxe embossed OBI. Subscriptions are open now for a measly 115 dollars for 12 CDs throughout the year. Don’t be caught with your analog pants down while digital audio comes back. Get your case logic racks and books ready!

New work for - the third singular entry in their Excavated Shellac series by , this time ‘Voices’ which collects incred...
12/05/2025

New work for - the third singular entry in their Excavated Shellac series by , this time ‘Voices’ which collects incredible 78rpm entries from Mongolia, Panama, Mauritania, Brazil and beyond. The next is Roosevelt Holt’s ‘Sun Gonna Shine’ which is another entry in blues historian and collector David Evan’s series. Both are digital only releases now available on and come with lengthy booklets complete with in depth essays, photos and ephemera. Highly recommended!

New work for - Allen turns 100 on the astral plane next year! With many thanks to the estate including and I was abl...
12/03/2025

New work for - Allen turns 100 on the astral plane next year! With many thanks to the estate including and I was able to cobble together this little logo using Alice Notley’s wonderful watercolor drawing as the base. This Friday for Bandcamp day there will be a shirt available featuring the logo on comfort colors ivory blank (😍). May you wear this shirt around the holidays so all your family asks who is Allen and you get to recite Howl for them. Molochs for everyone!

Field trip post - after years of saying ‘I gotta see her’ I finally saw Patti Smith tonight. It would have been foolish ...
11/25/2025

Field trip post - after years of saying ‘I gotta see her’ I finally saw Patti Smith tonight. It would have been foolish to pass up this tour when she’s performing ‘Horses’ for the first set of the night as it was utterly incredible and moving to be in the same room as the legend who wrote it 50 years. She’s truly one of the coolest women ever as you could feel it coming off her from 50ft - just so pure and alive. After they performed ‘Horses’ she left the stage for Lenny Kaye to lead a trio of Television songs followed by her returning and doing another set of the classics. Just one of those evenings I will be thinking about for years to come.

New work for - ‘Louis Wayne Moody presents… Walk Don’t Run’. The soundtrack for a buddy-comedy-thriller chronicling the...
11/20/2025

New work for - ‘Louis Wayne Moody presents… Walk Don’t Run’. The soundtrack for a buddy-comedy-thriller chronicling the unraveling of a lifelong friendship one manic diner dash, hijacked Woodie Wagon, Big Dipper roller coaster ride, and 3AM surf sesh at a time. With a wild front cover painting by Ron Lesser I expanded upon the noir theme with a two color back cover that nods to the dollar bin thrift designs of yore complete with a technicolor OBI strip that showcases the prior releases in the series. This one looks sharp and sounds sharp.

New restoration work for - ‘Junk’ and ‘This Afternoons Malady’ two of the most requested albums in the Numero catalog ...
11/10/2025

New restoration work for - ‘Junk’ and ‘This Afternoons Malady’ two of the most requested albums in the Numero catalog available for the first time in a long time. Junk actually has never been on vinyl while TAM came out on a pic disc in 1998 albeit missing a couple tracks which have been restored on this version. It’s kind of funny to call these restorations but both were rebuilt from scratch from the original files as the CDs had some gnarly moire patterns that it was just easier to start from scratch. TAM was originally designed by Jason Gnewikow then of the Collection Agency who is obviously well known for his album art for Jets to Brazil, The Promise Ring, Joan of Arc, among many others. It was a thrill to inhabit his design world for a minute as so many of these covers are engrained in my brain. As I write this the color vinyl is already sold out and there is bets being placed when the black vinyl will disappear too. So if this your scene and your hands are sweaty - act now!

New work for and - ‘It Is Not Enough To Survive - The Young Patriots Story’ book. This is a really incredible piece of...
11/07/2025

New work for and - ‘It Is Not Enough To Survive - The Young Patriots Story’ book. This is a really incredible piece of 1960/70s history that I had not a clue about until Jesse approached me about designing the cover. Formed in the late 1960s the YPO was a Chicago based radical group made up of young white migrants from Appalachia and the South who helped found Black Panther Fred Hampton’s Rainbow Coalition. The YPO grew from a local street gang into a powerful political and social force in Chicago’s Uptown neighborhood, where they fought against police brutality, racism, economic exploitation, and displacement through community organizing of survival programs and working class organizations. Jesse goes incredibly deep to share their roots from the South to their eventual arrival in the Midwest and beyond. It was an incredible honor to be trusted to design the cover of this book with iconic and riveting photography from the archives. Many thanks to for having me along as well. I have been a fan of her design for a long while and when she appeared on the joint email between myself and Jesse I was like ‘oh damn!’ The book is now available for preorder with release next spring!

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