Hassan Rahim
Hassan Rahim is an art director, artist, and designer originally from California now working out of New York. His aesthetic deals in stark, esoteric imagery; it doesn’t recoil from darkness. His direction and design have appeared on and ranged from magazines, gallery walls, record sleeves, concert stages, hats, street corners, and of course online.
Often as distinctive and boundary-troubling as he himself is, his work embodies far-flung but carefully steeped influences arranged into thrilling new harmonies. His willingness to forge new aesthetics rooted in but not tied to his own perspective has won Rahim venerable status as a thought leader, specifically among young black artists interested in nuance and subculture. As an autodidact, Rahim’s work is all the more emboldening. His example is part and parcel of a movement which is affecting music, art, fashion, and culture in profound ways.
Rahim has had the honor of working with esteemed clients such as VSCO, Sony Music, Suited Magazine, Urban Outfitters, Marilyn Manson, Willo Perron, Alldayeveryday, Nowness, Commonwealth Projects and more.
In 2015 Rahim founded 12:01, a full-service independent creative studio; the name of which is a wry tribute to his tireless commitment both to aesthetics and the demands of his vocation.
Marilyn Manson – THE PALE EMPEROR
Identity and Art Direction for THE PALE EMPEROR, Marilyn Manson’s 12th studio album — his most critically acclaimed release in the past 10 years. I was approached with the challenge of taking the dark and abrasive nature of his legacy and bringing it to a contemporary light.
The physical packaging is a combination of materials used to create stark contrasts — wax seals on rigid board, metallic c-prints mounted on cloth, UV gloss tip-ons on uncoated black card, and textured finishes to emulate sandpaper.
The CD is a pitch-black disc sourced from the original PlayStation manufacturer
(http://www.billboard.com/articles/business/6546110/marilyn-manson-playstation-discs) and were coated in heat-sensitive ink — when played, they eject from the player pure white.
The Resistance
Short film created with Qiu Yang in Amsterdam. The soundtrack was created by Wet using all samples and stems from their debut album “Don’t You”.
Suited Magazine
Identity and ongoing Art Direction for Suited Magazine. For this project my aim was to create a minimal, elegant, yet dynamic system with the restraint of only using a single typeface.