We are Glue Lab

Behind Glue Lab

Samu Salovaara · Graphic Designer · Helsinki

My work in graphic design started with bands, early in my teens. We needed covers for our own cassette and vinyl releases, logos, artwork for whatever we were putting out. In the DIY spirit of the underground scene, I handled every release myself. At some point other people started asking me for visuals, and it slowly became the work. A Master's in Visual Communication Design from Aalto University followed, though most of what I use daily was learned making sleeves for records nobody outside the scene had heard of.

The mockups came from a need rather than a plan. I was presenting record packaging to clients and could not find mockups that held up next to the real thing, so I started shooting my own. They were only meant to solve my own problem. That other designers use them now is the part I did not expect, and it is the reason Glue Lab exists as a shop rather than a folder on my drive.

Glue Lab sits inside a wider practice. Type design, layout, sound, textiles, and the crossovers between them, most of it artwork for bands and labels. Glue Lab is the product side: graphic tools for the music industry and the designers who work in it. Every scene is a physical shoot before it is a file, and it keeps getting rebuilt until it holds up as a photograph rather than a template. What survives becomes a release.

Say hello: moi@gluelab.xyz