The Hickensian

Normally a site I love simply gets a mention in the sidenotes, but I particularly wanted to spotlight the new(ish) music site Daytrotter. To quote the about section:

“We’re going to give you something that you truly have never heard. We are not giving you songs from someone you love’s record album, thereby stealing from someone you love. We’re giving you exclusive, re-worked, alternate versions of old songs and unreleased tracks by some of your favorite bands and by a lot of your next favorite bands.”

The list of bands recording sessions with Daytrotter is enough to get me excited (and the fact that they use Textpattern), but here’s the part I really, really love: illustration. There are a team of illustrators that work on the site, and rather than rely on publicity photographs, each session or feature has its own unique artwork. And damn fine illustration it is too.

As Mark Boulton said at SXSW this year “Illustration is missing in action on the web”.

Stock images in particular have become the fast easy way to illustrate content, while traditional artwork is barely anywhere to be seen. When A List Apart relaunched, they made the brave move to use illustration to accompany each article, and the effect was a huge breath of fresh air. Daytrotter joins that revolution! Rejoice!