Love Heart Cheat Code

Hiatus Kaiyote, Band, Australia

Illustrative system

Having been a fan of Hiatus Kaiyote for over 10 years, when I was invited to contribute to their latest album as an illustrator, it felt surreal (and still does). I am honoured to have been able to contribute the unique visual world surrounding HK’s latest musical masterpiece, a personal dream come true ︎.

My role in this project was to illustrate symbols for each song of “Love Heart Cheat Code”. The creative process was a beautiful collaboration with Jeremy Koren (creative director/art director and graphic designer for HK), artist and muralist Lauren YS (@squid.licker) and Hiatus Kaiyote themselves.

The end result is a lexicon of 11 symbols that have been used in wide campaign surrounding the album and tour: going from printed and textile merch, cassettes, cds, vinyls, embroidered patches, tattoos, videos, a mascot (!) and a large variety of supermarket collectible items available at LHCC Pop-Up Shops across the globe. 

“On Love Heart Cheat Code the band envisioned a strong visual world to coincide with the music and they worked with Sri Lanken born, Toronto based multimedia artist Rajni Perera using one of her paintings as the artwork for the album.

Illustrator Chloé Biocca and Grey Ghost then collaborated with the band to create visual symbols and associated artifacts for each of the tracks on the project that pair alongside Rajni’s painting. The artifacts morphed into real products, custom jewelry, edible goods, ranging from the inspired to the haunted and utterly random. Eventually this led the band to conceive of an entirely imagined place, a Love Heart Cheat Code supermarket. The band; its employees who create these products, market them, stack the shelves, clean the aisles. In the banality of creating art into ‘product’ for the modern world the band find solace in each item and song as they are packed with transcendent and resplendent musical magic.”

*Description of the project from Hiatus Kaiyote’s Bandcamp

LHCC Mart Pop-Ups

Along with their concept of LHCC Mart, Hiatus Kaiyote organized a few pop-up LHCC Markets, in Los Angeles, Melbourne and Tokyo, selling with many merch items on sale (BBQ Sauce, cereal, tea, clothing items, music, jewlery, beer, plush toys, laundry bags, towels, soap, and more). The Pop-Ups often featuring live music and in a convivial vibe, with an opportunity for the audience and the band to connect.