A synth-forward pop-punk band from Denton, Texas, [DARYL] felt like a revved-up Rentals (one-time Weezer bassist Matt Sharp's mid-90s side project). Coming right on the heels of my first Urinine Records assignment, The Wrong Way Home: A Tribute to Supertramp, label owner Sid introduced me to the band's music. I dug it. The band and I hit it off, and I was hired to design their debut EP, Communication:Duration.

The album's photos came from Chicago O'Hare, where I'd photographed Michael Hayden's Sky's the Limit installation while shooting for the Supertramp tribute. While they weren't shot with Communication:Duration in mind, they felt particularly well suited to the themes we'd discussed.

The installation's illuminated panels offered two very different moods. On the front cover, the red lighting suggested the menacing technology of HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, an association reinforced by the rows of computer code. On the back, the blue panels offered something closer to freedom or escape.

Originally, I'd cropped the back-cover photograph much tighter, eliminating the framing around the blue panels. But Sid wasn't having it. I argued for the simplicity of the image; he argued that it was his money and he wasn't paying for a back cover with so little on it. Fair enough, I suppose. We pulled back the crop, and I think it worked out just fine.