Mike Joyce Research

Mike Joyce moved to New York City’s East Village in 1994 and was incredibly influenced by the art scene there, much like Dan Friedman. After working for several creative companies and a stint at MTV, two years later he founded Stereotype Design, a one-man studio specializing in wide-ranging projects for the entertainment industry. In the early years he created album covers and posters for indie bands that he was friends with, which eventually led to work with developing labels and, later down the line, big record companies like Sony, Capitol, Columbia and others, even Blue Note, who Reid Miles designed for in the 1950s and 60s. Mike taught at the School of Visual Arts for seven years. He lives and works in the West Village of New York City and refuses to design wedding invitations.

Music packaging is often seen as a dying sector, but opportunities continue to open up for Joyce. Sony Music Entertainment’s catalogue division, Legacy Recordings, is one new client. Legacy repackages and re-issues music, often with deluxe extras thrown in for fans who still go to the trouble of purchasing CDs or vinyl. According to Joyce, this makes for dream projects.

His creative process includes listening to the album and doing a bit of research about the band and their past activities, and looking at their website. He might receive a brief from the label, or the band’s agent, but sometimes he’ll work directly with the artist.

In 2012 Mike launched Swissted, a personal project combining his love of Swiss graphic design and punk rock by redesigning vintage punk, hardcore, new wave, and indie rock show flyersinto hundreds of vivid International Typographic Style posters. Each design is set in lowercase Berthold Akzidenz-Grotesk medium—not Helvetica.

Joyce’s designs clearly are inspired by Swiss modernism, a type of design that he says he has a love for, however, certain parts of his work hold clear and obvious inspiration from Reid Miles. Yes, his Swissted project is strictly swiss design but Joyce’s ‘style’ adapts when he is designing new blue note covers or work for The Lemonheads. In a sense, he is a chameleon, and it is hard to pin down his style. It changes from client to client. It can be clean-cut in the style of Max Bill or grunge and New Wave in the style of Wolfgang Weingart or David Carson. He is extremely versatile when it comes to the world of design for music.