Zach Blew | Away at Sea

✶ Anchoring Success ✶
150% Growth and 200K Views Under a Year.

✶ Anchoring Success ✶
150% Growth and +500K Views Under a Year.

✶ The Goal:
To position Zach as a mature folk artist on his debut project, entering the market with a strong visual strategy that captures 10 years of work in the making.

✶ The Solution:
Developed a multi-platform brand campaign merging tradition, legacy, and symbolism. Crafted a visual world around a character archetype based on market preferences, combining handcrafted typography, maritime objects, and illustrations. Extended storytelling across YouTube and Instagram for a cohesive brand experience.

✶ The Outcomes:
The campaign generated 200K views on YouTube and 300K on Instagram, leading to a rapid growth in Zach’s following from 4K to 10K in under a year. The project gained attention from radios in Austin, Texas and local magazines, positioning him as a must-hear artist with a distinct, immersive aesthetic.

From my perspective, daily life lies between the real world and fantasy, they both look imperceptible for us, we are not conscious of it until something happens and breaks this state, triggering an emotion and symbolic relations that blurs the limits of what we are and what we belong to: We become part of a whole.

This broken state goes beyond what the photographic language can capture. To fill this gap, I mix digital techniques that expand the semiotics of the image, to the point of merging fantasy with reality, interpreting the image of our vulnerability facing our surroundings and the inexorable passing of time in each one of my portraits and self-portraits.

✶ The Goal:
Position Zach Blew as a mature folk artist, crafting a visual identity that reflects a decade of artistic growth.

✶ The Solution:
Developed a multichannel brand campaign merging tradition and symbolism, through an extended strategic storytelling plan across social media using cohesive graphic elements to elevate brand presence.

✶ The Outcomes:
The campaign amassed 500K+ views, doubling Zach’s following from 4K to 10K in a year. Coverage from Austin radio and local magazines solidified his status as a rising artist with a distinctive aesthetic.

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A Debut – Ten Years in The Making
Project Overview

For Away at Sea, Zach wanted to make his debut as an experienced artist shaped by memory, tenacity, and personal history. The challenge was to create a visual world that felt both timeless and intimate, balancing his evolution with a fresh narrative. Inspired by a poet-sailor in isolation, the campaign reimagined Zach as an artist lost in time—his creativity etched onto hands, clothing, and scraps of paper, blurring the lines between music, art, and storytelling.

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Project Overview

For Away at Sea, Zach sought a debut identity shaped by memory and personal history. Inspired by a poet-sailor in isolation, the campaign reimagined him as an artist lost in time—his creativity woven into hands, clothing, and scattered notes, blurring the lines between music, art, and storytelling.

'The Urban Voyager'
Target Audience

The Urban Voyager is a young adult on a journey of self-discovery. navigating the pulse of city life after leaving behind a small-town past. Drawn to storytelling and aesthetics, he finds meaning in social experiences and intimate soundscapes he carefully curates. Zach Blew’s fusion of folk, R&B, and singer-songwriter traditions becomes his soundtrack—cinematic, nostalgic, and deeply personal—guiding his search for identity, romance, and connection in an ever-changing world.

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'The Urban Voyager'
Target Audience

A young creative navigating city life, curating intimate soundscapes that reflect nostalgia, self-discovery, and romance. Zach’s blend of folk, R&B, and singer-songwriter traditions becomes his cinematic soundtrack.

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Positioning & Market

✶ Challenges
Austin’s rich music scene creates fierce competition for emerging folk artists. To stand out, they need distinct artistry, strong branding, and a strategy beyond live performances.

✶ Insights
While live shows dominate Austin’s music culture, there’s untapped potential in digital storytelling, lifestyle-driven branding and brand collaborations. By aligning Zach’s music with broader cultural narratives, we create deeper audience engagement.

✶ Solutions
Establish Zach as visually appealing alt-folk and future lifestyle brand presented as 'your life's cinematic soundtrack'. Through strategic partnerships, compelling storytelling, and visually striking content, we differentiate his presence in a crowded industry.

Positioning & Market

✶ Challenges
Austin’s competitive music scene demands strong branding beyond live performances.

✶ Insights
Digital storytelling and lifestyle branding offer untapped opportunities for deeper audience engagement.

✶ Solutions
Position Zach as an alt-folk lifestyle brand—a soundtrack for modern life. Leverage partnerships, compelling narratives, and visually striking content to differentiate him.

Album cover vinyl for Zach Blew's 'Away At Sea' by Jon Jacobsen featuring a portrait of Zach Blew, unique typography design, and minimal surreal art direction.

Character Building
Creative Process

The album’s identity was built around the idea of a modern sailor-poet, drawing inspiration from 16th and 17th-century naval portraiture with an editorial twist. Repurposed vintage clothing in deep blues, greens, and sand tones evoked the passage of time and the coastal landscapes that shaped the album’s themes.

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Character Building
Creative Process

The visual identity draws from 16th–17th-century naval portraiture with a modern editorial twist. Vintage clothing in oceanic tones evokes time, memory, and coastal landscapes.

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Branding & Symbolism

Zach's ideal audience thrives on symbolism. For this, we defined the spinning seashell as the project’s central motif—representing transformation, memory, and time. Every visual emphasized this motif, adding clues and depth in the mundane, urging the audience to notice overlooked details. The tactile approach ensured that every aspect of the campaign, down to the smallest design choices, felt intentional and cohesive.

Branding & Symbolism

A spinning seashell became the central motif—symbolizing transformation and time, woven into the campaign’s smallest details for depth and cohesion.

Typography & Logo
Back to Traditions

To reinforce the handcrafted nature of the project, Zach’s initials were transformed into a monogram inspired by illuminated manuscripts. The design was drawn by hand, referencing the calligraphic strokes of old naval logbooks, and later refined for digital applications. The goal was to create something that felt like it belonged in both historical and contemporary contexts, much like the music itself.

Typography & Logo
Back to Traditions

Zach’s monogram was hand-drawn, inspired by illuminated manuscripts and naval logbooks, bridging historical and contemporary aesthetics.

Zach Blew_AwayAtSeaPromo_JonJacobsen_shells

Ai Enhancements

Artificial intelligence played a subtle but significant role in reinforcing the album’s themes of memory and transformation. Once the core visuals were finalized, AI-generated shells were created, evolving from an embryonic form into a fully realized structure—mirroring the growth of artistic identity over time. These animations were incorporated into music visualizers and digital promotions, adding a hypnotic, evolving centerpiece to the campaign.

Ai Enhancements

AI-generated evolving seashells mirrored artistic growth, appearing in music visualizers and digital promos as a hypnotic, evolving motif.

Single Artwork

Complementing the album cover, the single artworks showcased abstract still-life digital illustrations inspired by Zach’s lyrics. Each piece drew from 1800s Dutch still-life aesthetics, blending classical symbolism with a surrealist edge to create a familiar yet dreamlike visual language.

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Single Artwork

Still-life digital illustrations, influenced by 1800s Dutch painting, blended classical symbolism with surrealism. Visualizers extended Zach’s lyricism into modular, cinematic short films adaptable for social media.

Visualizers

Each single was accompanied by a visualizer that extended Zach’s lyricism into the broader branding campaign. These minimalist surrealist vignettes were designed to be modular—allowing them to function as both cohesive short films and adaptable social media content without losing narrative impact.

Visualizers

Each single was accompanied by a visualizer that extended Zach’s lyricism into the broader branding campaign. These minimalist surrealist vignettes were designed to be modular—allowing them to function as both cohesive short films and adaptable social media content without losing narrative impact.

Zach Blew

Portraits

Visual Strategy and print design by Jon Jacobsen
Promotional Ad directed and edited by Jon Jacobsen
Sound design by Enya de la Jara
Product images kindly provided by Lisa Eldridge

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