Almost There EP
Client: AKila K & E. Nigma
Project: Creative direction: Album cover, single covers, merch, promo graphics.
Year: 2026
Role: Creative Director
Category: Music Campaign, Album Art, Merch Design, Creative Direction
The business problem: Seven deliverables, one budget, and a campaign that had to feel inevitable across every format.
The Story
E. Nigma and AKila K came to me with a fully recorded EP called Almost There. They needed a visual campaign including album cover, three single covers, merch artwork, and five promotional graphics. Every piece had to feel like it belonged to the same world.
The visual direction was rooted in real New York. Subway culture, graffiti influence, Mets and Yankees references, Penn Station signage, 1990s Grand Central energy. The New York you know if you've lived here, not the skyline-on-a-poster version.
The Approach
Discovery first: understanding the artists, the album's narrative arc, and how the visual system needed to support the music without competing with it. From there, artwork — the album cover and three single covers for "aNYtime, aNYwhere," "Luxury," and "What ya Heard ." Then merch and rollout assets: two shirt designs and five social graphics timed to the release.
Music campaigns require every piece to work independently and as part of the set. A single cover needs to stand alone on Spotify. The same visual language has to feel cohesive when all four covers sit together. The merch needs to work on a body, in a photo, and as a thumbnail. One visual system, six different contexts.
What Happened
The full campaign delivered on time and on scope. The visual system held across every format: streaming platforms, social, physical merch, and promo. E. Nigma's appearance on @afterhourshow wearing REFiL merch created organic cross-brand visibility — an unplanned outcome that validated the cultural overlap between the audience I design for and the audience I sell to.
The Lesson
Impact
The same process — listen, brief, design, refine — applies whether you're building a logo system or a 12-deliverable music campaign. The medium doesn't change the discipline.
Unified visual language across social/digital promo assets
Organic cross-brand visibility: E. Nigma x REFiL x @afterhourshow
First fully documented campaign with a signed SOW on file
Deliverables
Album cover + 3 single covers
2 merch designs (shirts + hoodies)
5 social/digital promo assets
Organic cross-brand visibility: E. Nigma x REFiL x @afterhourshow
First fully documented campaign with a signed SOW on file
If you need a visual system that holds across every format — covers, merch, social — this is the method. How I work →
AKila K
E. Nigma
