Headers Gallery

Our original logo/banner design, by Randy Olson, was designed with an eye towards flexibility in addition to eye-appealing freshness. We’re very proud of our logo. It’s simple yet different, throwback with a new typographical twist. Over the life of the site, we’ve had some opportunities to play with our wonderful logo design a bit, most often to highlight major new releases. We do this to keep things interesting but also as a bit of a treat for our readers. Stumble on the right page on our site, and you might find a whole new webpage staring back at you.

To commemorate these designs, here’s a chronological gallery which we’ll update as we change our look, which we’ll surely do as often as people are still around to see it. Click the pics to shoot to an article with which that header is associated!

The Original AudioSuede Header

The classic.

The Light Blue Logo

This logo has been used for several albums with a more playful tone. It’s just meant to be a lighter look to our usual seriousness. Past “Light Blue” articles have featured Future Islands, She & Him, The Apples in Stereo, and more.

The Brown Logo

This was another variation on the original brown, blue, and white color scheme. The brown also really brings out the suede pattern in the header background, a feature in all of our earlier header designs that’s extremely subtle, but which was a brilliant touch by the original designer. The Brown logo has been used for artists like Laura Veirs, The Tallest Man on Earth, and others.

The Black Logo

Some articles warrant a darker tone, and the Black logo was designed with this in mind. Past Black articles have featured Youth Pictures of Florence Henderson, Xiu Xiu, Coheed and Cambria (yep) and others. The site also flew under the Black header the day the White Stripes announced their breakup in 2011.

Happy Westgiving

Our first artist-specific header was dedicated to Kanye West. The release of his groundbreaking album My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy the week of Thanksgiving was both a blessing and a curse for many of us (the writers wanted the week off). To commemorate the album and give everyone their time off, we posted the review of the new album along with this banner and let it stand until we got back the next week.

Happy Holidays 2010

For an extended winter break, Christian got a little effects-happy, and the result was this snowy, colorful, politically-correct holiday banner.

AudioSuede's Best of 2010

Our Best of 2010 coverage was huge. Our first year in existence had been a landmark for music (not because of us, obviously, because of the music itself), and we spent a full week-and-a-half with lists, playlists, and five articles in a row in which our writers reviewed their #1 or #2 picks for Album of the Year in-depth. This banner flew over all of it, and still stands on those old articles today.

The "Goblin" Logo

The first in a new string of artist-related headers, the “Goblin” design was originally going to stand as the lone celebrant of Tyler, The Creator’s sophomore release. Of course, the week proved to have a higher-than-average number of gems and anticipated favorites. Still, “Goblin” was the first in a new generation of AudioSuede headers made to celebrate the best in new releases.

The "Turtleneck and Chain" Logo

The day after “Goblin” took a much sillier turn with this logo for The Lonely Island’s second album review. Note the light gold chain on the AS logo. That took work, if you can believe it.

The "Take Care" Logo

Next up was Explosions in the Sky’s Take Care, Take Care, Take Care, the album art for which was altered to make this header. The logos almost blend into the background, but not quite.

The Manchester Logo

Originally meant to herald the review of Manchester Orchestra’s Simple Math, this header proved to be so much work to make that it stayed up for a few days even without the accompanying review. Seriously, this one was tough work. Enjoy it!

The "Rome" Logo

One of the most complicated headers to date, the “Rome” logo accompanied the review of the album from Danger Mouse and Daniele Luppi of the same name.

Best of 2011

Best of 2011 - White Tie

We kicked off our exhaustive coverage of the end of 2011 with this take on the “Black Tie Affair.” Alternatively, it could be the mustache of the Lorax.

Best of 2011 - Black and White

There were three general “Best Of” banners that ran during this stretch. This was the second. Yay!

Albums of 2011 - "Let England Shake"

Once again, we did our week-long Albums of 2011 series, but this year we upped the ante with five distinct headers highlighting the albums in question. Jean-Philip Guy wrote about PJ Harvey’s Let England Shake.

Albums of 2011 - Geotic, "Mend"

Chris Polley wrote about Geotic’s Mend. Fun fact: The AS logo took on different colors and textures for all five posts in this series. This was a personal favorite of its creator.

Albums of 2011 - Bon Iver, "Bon Iver"

Chris Bosman wrote on our eventual Album of the Year winner, Bon Iver’s Bon Iver. This was also a fan-favorite banner.

Albums of 2011 - Kevin Devine, "Between the Concrete and Clouds"

Ruby Niemann wrote on Kevin Devine’s Between the Concrete and Clouds. Fun fact: One of the trees has a line through it on the original album cover that’s barely noticeable in its normal size but which  was too glaring for our banner. Thus, it was carefully edited out.

Albums of 2011 - "Strange Mercy"

Christian Hagen wrote about St. Vincent’s Strange Mercy. Many of the Albums of 2011 had very abstract album covers, especially Strange Mercy and Mend.

Best of 2011 - Waves

The last Best of 2011 header, and the last unique header in AudioSuede’s life, was a time-consuming, bizarre, fascinating creation, much like the site itself. Also, much like the site itself, it was very much a labor of love, and one which its creator will miss very much.