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Kflay "Mono"

// services
Overall Creative Direction
Digital
Branding & Identity
// Live website
Giant Records approached us to redefine K.Flay's artistic identity for her fifth studio album, MONO—a pivotal moment marking her evolution from punk-influenced youthful energy to a more mature, refined aesthetic. This transformation needed to honor her raw, expressive nature while elevating her visual language to match the conceptual depth of the album.MONO is rooted in profound personal narrative: K.Flay's sudden hearing loss in her right ear became the catalyst for an album exploring resilience, adaptation, and artistic reinvention. Our challenge was to translate this deeply intimate experience into a visual identity that could resonate universally while remaining authentically hers. We led the creative direction across all touchpoints—identity branding, color palette development, thematic frameworks, tonal strategy, and narrative storytelling—creating a cohesive world that would carry across album artwork, live performances, and digital campaigns.The result was a critically acclaimed release that peaked at number 8 on the US Heatseekers Albums chart, with New Noise Magazine calling it "her most cohesive work to date." Beyond commercial success, we created an identity that deepened K.Flay's connection with her audience, establishing her as an artist unafraid to be vulnerable while pushing creative boundaries.
Conceptual Framework: The Magician's Assistant
To visualize K.Flay's journey through hearing loss and reinvention, we developed a rich metaphorical world centered on The Magician's Assistant—a character whose resilience mirrors K.Flay's own experience. This figure is perpetually tested: cut in half, made to disappear, swallowing fire, yet always emerging whole. She represents the artist who must adapt, perform, and persist despite circumstances beyond her control. The Magician exists only in fragments throughout the visual narrative—hands holding a chainsaw, fingers gripping a key, tools of transformation glimpsed but never fully revealed. This deliberate absence represents the mysterious forces that challenge us: fate, circumstance, the body's unexpected betrayals. By keeping The Magician faceless and elusive, we placed focus squarely on The Assistant's response to adversity rather than the adversity itself. This duality became the visual language for MONO: images of division and wholeness, disappearance and presence, danger and survival. The aesthetic balanced theatrical drama with intimate vulnerability, creating imagery that felt both conceptually bold and emotionally immediate. Every visual element reinforced the album's central question: How do we continue creating when our fundamental relationship with our art form is disrupted? The conceptual framework extended beyond static imagery into performance, merchandise, and fan engagement, creating a unified visual ecosystem that made K.Flay's personal story accessible and meaningful to her audience.
Visual Identity & Design Language
Our visual identity system for MONO needed to embody both fragmentation and cohesion—reflecting the experience of losing stereo hearing while finding new ways to create. We developed a sophisticated yet raw aesthetic that honored K.Flay's alternative roots while signaling her artistic maturation. Color Palette: We crafted a refined palette that departed from her previous work's high-contrast punk energy. Deep, moody tones—midnight blacks, burnished golds, deep crimsons, and smoky grays—created drama and sophistication while maintaining an edge. Strategic pops of brightness appeared sparingly, like moments of clarity breaking through disorientation. Typography & Graphics: The design language embraced bold, theatrical typography reminiscent of vintage magic show posters, but executed with modern refinement. We incorporated visual motifs of division—split compositions, mirrored asymmetry, and deliberate imbalance—that reinforced the MONO concept without becoming heavy-handed. Clean lines and intentional negative space allowed the powerful imagery to breathe. Photography & Imagery: Our visual approach featured K.Flay both as herself and channeling The Magician's Assistant persona. Images played with duality, fragmentation, and transformation. The photography style was cinematic and intimate simultaneously—close-ups that revealed vulnerability alongside dramatic, composed scenes that spoke to resilience and theatricality. This cohesive visual system translated seamlessly across album packaging, promotional materials, social media assets, and merchandise, creating immediate recognition while allowing flexibility for various applications throughout the album cycle.
Live Experience & Digital Campaign: Ritual of Release
For K.Flay's MONO tour, we extended the album's themes of transformation and healing into an immersive, participatory experience that created profound connection between artist and audience. Stage Design: We developed a visual environment that brought The Magician's Assistant concept to life in three dimensions. Lighting design played with shadow and revelation, disappearance and emergence. Stage elements incorporated the aesthetic vocabulary established in the visual identity—dramatic silhouettes, fractured projections, and moments of stark theatrical beauty that heightened the emotional resonance of the performance. The Ritual of Release: We created a groundbreaking digital campaign centered on collective healing and letting go. At each show, fans received paper and pencils with a simple invitation: write down something you want to remove from your life spiritually. This participatory act transformed the concert from passive entertainment into active ritual. After each performance, K.Flay collected the papers and burned them in a livestreamed ceremony, creating an intimate moment of release shared between artist and community. This ritual served multiple purposes: it honored the album's themes of transformation through loss, it created vulnerability and trust between K.Flay and her fans, and it generated powerful digital content that extended the concert experience beyond the venue walls. The campaign resonated deeply with K.Flay's audience, many of whom struggle with mental health challenges and found catharsis in the collective acknowledgment of what they needed to release. By documenting these moments across social platforms, we created an ongoing narrative throughout the tour—one that celebrated resilience, community, and the transformative power of art. This approach exemplified K.Flay's commitment to using her platform for meaningful connection, reinforcing her identity as an artist who doesn't just perform for her fans but creates space to heal alongside them.

Credits

Overall Creative Direction
Jennifer Pearl
Record Label
GIANT
Artist
Kristine Meredith Flaherty
Management
Seth Cummings
KFLAY– CAMPAIGN
Photographer
Justin Bettman
Art Director
Jennifer Pearl
Production Company
Sarah-Jane Ashby, Ryan Holt, Caleb Wolfson – Anderson Hopkins
Digital Tech
Danny
First Assistant
Anthony
Set Designer / Prop Stylist
Yaro Banduro
Set / Prop Assistant
Tiffany Lupien
Wardrobe Stylist
Erica Mer
Wardrobe Assistant
Mckall Willis
Hair & Makeup
Victoria McGrath
Birds / Animal Handler
Joseph Tran
BTS Video
Thomas Trial
Talent
Kristine Flaherty (K.Flay)
Management
Seth Cummings
Record Label
Brooks Roach, Matt LaMotte – GIANT
Location
Leila Mitchell
KFLAY– “RAW RAW”
Artist
K.Flay (Kristine Flaherty)
Director
Griffin Olis
Executive Producers
Max McGuire
Kyle Zigan
Producers
Brooks Roach
Matt LaMotte
Production Manager
Sam Adgate
1st Assistant Director
Arthur Payne
Director of Photography
Donald Turner
1st AC
Spencer Wood
Gaffer
Michael Tellup
Key Grip
Jon Corum
Swing
Per Gaffer
Creative Director
Jennifer Pearl
Production Designer
Yaro Banduro
Prop Assistant
Tiffany Lupien
Hair & Makeup
Victoria McGrath
BTS Videography
Thomas Trial
Will Petersen
Production Company
Solace Creative
Label / Partners
GIANT
Management
Seth Cummings
KFLAY– “SHY”
Director
Griffin Olis
Executive Producer / Creative Director
Jennifer Pearl
Producer
Dylan Bell
Director of Photography
Ujjwal Chande
1st AC
Sean Delahunt
Gaffer
Brent Wilson
Hair & Makeup
Vix
Production Assistant
Nicholas Tatone
Photographer
Danielle Mernst
Post Production
Artcamp
KFLAY– “MONO DOC”
Video & Editing
Thomas Trial
KFLAY– “PUNISHER”
Creative Director / Executive Producer
Jennifer Pearl
Story & Narrative
K.Flay, Jennifer Pearl
Animation Sudio
Sydney Task