Co-Owner / Art Director
As one of the three co-owners of the business I took on multiple roles, my main focus being art director for the company.
As the art director I am responsible for:
- All branding for Static Divergent Waves and artists within the label.
- Creating cover art and animations for the music releases
- Building the website and online storefront
- Designing all of the products (branded clothing, canvas prints, stickers, vinyls, etc.)
I also act as the artist manager, in which I:
- Facilitate any studio time, audio engineering, or any resources needed for the artists.
- Schedule, promote, and analyze music releases
- Establish connections between artists to help increase self-sufficiency
- Regulate artist documents, files, and professional communications
To Establish the SDW Brand in the Music Industry
My goal as the co-owner and art director of Static Divergent Waves was to ensure that the brand was fully developed, unique, and evolving to ensure an entry into the music industry. On top of this, our goals were to work with other local Toronto-based artists to help establish their own brand in relation to SDW.
A Collection of Successful Releases
Over the course of two years me and my two partners have released several albums and singles, and worked with many other artists to release:
- 6 independent singles with full cover art, animations and product line
- 2 instrumental albums with corresponding 'beat packs' for sale
- Multiple 'beat packs' sold to major labels and independent artists
- Sales across several Static Divergent Waves product lines and merchandise through the Shopify website built by myself.
BRANDING
I began the journey of creating a music label by drawing up a few ideas for a logo. Several years later we have a strong and unique identity
WEBSITE & STOREFRONT
One purpose-driven website that hosts discographies and an online store for multiple artists as well as the SDW brand.
ART & ANIMATIONS
Over forty cover arts created for artists, either in-house or hired for out-of-house work. Many of the cover arts came with an animated version.
ARTIST & MUSIC MANAGEMENT
Our team began by creating the brand of the website and series of games. After settling on the look of "Spatial Reasoning Games" we got to work.
PRODUCT DESIGN
Appearance, materials, suppliers & logistics of all of our products have all been laid out by me. From the stitching found in our sweaters to ink in our canvas.
CONTENT WRITING & SOCIAL MEDIA
Across our social media you can find content on new releases, discussions of music and artists, playlists, and more. All done by yours truly.
An Evolving Entertainment Enterprise
In the beginning Static Divergent Waves was strictly focused on music, but as our expertise expand our scope also has broadened. Static Divergent Waves now has three major areas we are aimed in:
- SDW Music
- SDW Games
- SDW Video
Although our priority is still working with musicians, we have also begun working with streamers, vloggers and various other internet personalities. Our jobs range from creating visual art assets for social media or their website, to leasing certain songs for videos. We have even leased an album for a soundtrack to an upcoming video game.
Our brand has to reflect all of these branches of our business, and vice versa. This task took several months of testing and evolving an idea into a set of logos and branding guideline that capture the essence of Static Divergent Waves.
A Flexible and Foolproof Website
Our website initially was as simple as the few songs we had released. Over the years it has gone through several renditions, with its current edition including
- Set of blogs with articles on music, games, and news related to SDW.
- Store hosting digital art assets and physical merchandise for SDW and several affiliates
- Individual artist, song, and album pages
- Community pages to host events, contests and giveaways (as well as links to our Discord, Reddit, etc.)
and several other miscellaneous sets of pages. I personally designed the framework and mock-up of the website using Adobe Illustrator before building it on Shopify using a page builder and personal coding. The website features embedded iframes for all of our affiliated music, animated SVGs created by me, and a large mix of custom-built HTML and CSS Sections.
A Variety of Valuable Visuals
Over the three years that I have been working on Static Divergent Waves I have created a large assembly of cover arts and supporting visuals to go along with the music releases. Below is a collection of some of my favorites.
A Series of Successful Songs & Albums
Over the several years that Static Divergent Waves has been operational we have released a series of singles and albums that received favorable remarks from music industry personalities and has reached several streaming milestones.
I was responsible for the organization and scheduling of the releases, as well as budgeting and targeting our promotions to increase traffic to the various streaming services.
Our own released singles include:
- Don't Want Us - Matri6 & Ayo KO
- 215,000+ streams on Spotify & Recommended by NoJumper and T-Minus
- Dangerous Love - Trap Boi Tae
- 31,000+ streams on Spotify
- Cash - DTINTHESIX & Ayo KO
- 27,000+ streams on Spotify
- Silent. -DTINTHESIX
- 26,000+ streams on Spotify
- and more!
We have two beat tapes (instrumental albums meant for sale to vocal artists) that have been released on all major streaming platforms and received numerous sales.
These tapes are:
- ENERGY - Ayo KO
- 13 Song album with an electrifying energy
- FIGURES - Ayo KO
- 12 Song album with a dark and melodic sound
Along with these releases under our own label we have also sent out instrumentals and worked with other artists and labels. Some of these artists include Lil Quill, Luwop2x, Casino Cel, and more!
A Plethora of Pleasing Purchaseables
In early 2021 I personally began expanding the Static Divergent Website to include products. The method that I decided was best to do this was to disassemble the WordPress website that I had previously built and rebuild entirely on Shopify. This was to efficiently develop products and manage shipping and payments. My previous experience at Marketplace Solutions introduced me to the Shopify systems, so the jump was more natural.
Using a variety of custom vendors, shipping services and marketing services we have begun selling digital and physical products.
The digital products have been limited mainly to music and visual art ranging from:
- Beat tapes - entire instrumentals sold to artists at bulk price for non-exclusive use
- Beat singles - singular songs sold to artists for non-exclusive or exclusive use
- Cover art - singular cover art sold to artists for non-exclusive or exclusive use
- NFTs - custom art that has been registered and sold as an NFT to a singular buyer
The physical products that I have designed and began selling range from all manner of clothing to accessories such as phone cases and stickers, to even a line of baby products to celebrate one of the owner's first child! Below is a small selection from our wider range.
A Curation of Creative Content
With everything that we have made, from music, to clothing, to connections with other artists, there has been a need to market and show-off what we have done. Our social media channels include:
- Facebook Business Page
- linked with Shopify support & store
- used as a convenient method to browse our services and products through the Facebook system
- Instagram Business Page
- linked with Shopify support & store
- used as a platform to advertise our releases, connect with artists and sell physical products
- LinkedIn Page
- used to connect with other music and entertainment industry professionals
- Twitter
- used to connect with and talk to other local artists
- post about upcoming releases and streams by SDW affiliates
- TikTok
- post about upcoming releases, various studio tips and tricks, and visual art creation videos
- All our music releases are on TikTok
Our social media and blog was the solution. Our posts for social media are comprised of a mix of daily content focused on the music industry's culture and artists, with regular posts about tips and tricks for music and visual art production. Recently we have also begun posting about game releases and e-sports news to coincide with our expansion into streaming and gaming.
Our blog on the Static Divergent Waves website contains expanded articles on many of the topics posted about on social media, as well unique news such as the release of a new SDW Radio playlist or upcoming music from SDW artists or affiliates.
Through the various social media channels we have begun establishing a fan base that regularly follows and checks up on our website, we have gained followers on our streaming profiles on services such as Spotify, Youtube, SoundCloud, etc., and we have increased the traffic and sales on our website's store.
Below are examples of some of the various posts we have created for our various social media.