Every picture tells an AWEN story...

Woodcut meets Graphic Novel for our new releases!

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Being musical storytellers, it’s no surprise that many of our songs have narrative lyrics. Sometimes it’s just the hint of a tale, but sometimes it’s a full-out three-act structure in five minutes...

And sometimes, stories benefit from pictures to bring them alive.

This past year, we’ve been refining AWEN’s brand communication, which basically means making sure that everything we say and do and produce is joined up.

One of those areas was Illustration. We wanted the troupe to have recognisable images for each song AWEN releases – art pieces which would be engaging and character-led, easy to share on social.

To do it, Michael called up a fellow creative, senior illustrator and music producer Jon Birch. The pair, who have known each other since secondary school last worked together in the early 2000’s, garnering a few awards into the bargain – and both are creative polymaths, equally obsessive about the quality of what they do!

After a few weeks of experimentation, they settled on a hybrid style for AWEN’s illustration approach – mixing woodcut (representing the folk tradition) melded with a Graphic Novel treatment (representing contemporary storytelling). Each cover features a character that represents the song in some way.

Anyway, fast forward six months... and we have a bunch of tracks with stunning art which have been released as SIx Songs for Midwinter - and several more in the pipeline!