Visual Artist Spotlight: Courtney Reader

You have likely seen Courtney Reader's work on the visuals surrounding The Surfrajettes' new album, "Easy as Pie." Bringing "The Surfrajettes Diner" to life through their unique photography & design styles, Reader created a striking visual identity for the 'Jettes second album - in stores this Friday, October 4. We caught up with the Toronto-based artist recently - read our conversation below and be sure to follow @lensgrrrl on Instagram to keep up with their upcoming projects.

Tell us about your art background, inspirations & how you refined your style

I was raised in a family of women artists, so it was near impossible to escape art growing up. I always knew I wanted to pursue art to some degree, and what started with drawing expanded to photography, prop design and eventually, graphic design.

I have always been deeply fascinated with the process of pre-digital design - I not only admire looking at vintage designs, but I love researching how they were made and reverse engineering them. My interest in the philosophy behind mid-century art naturally formed into making my style look as authentically vintage as possible. I’m a big fan of artists like Mike Strouth, Cipe Pineles, John Hanna, Evaline Ness, Bunny Yeager and beyond.

You have done a bunch of photo work in the past for The Surfrajettes, and now you have become a main designer of assets around their new album. How did you link up with the band in the first place?

I love sharing this story! I met Shermy many moons ago and introduced myself as a photographer at an event held by the Toronto Vintage Society. I must have been no older than 16 or 17, but we hit it off really quickly. Once The Surfrajettes had formed a few years later, Shermy asked me to photograph them for promos and to film their now iconic Toxic cover for Youtube - and the rest is history!

You accompanied the band on The Beach Boys cruise. Tell us about that experience?

Talk about a dream come true! Besides the beautiful weather and destinations, it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience getting to see some legendary artists perform. I will tell anyone to go see The Temptations live - it’s like stepping into a time machine. The most rewarding part of the experience was seeing the culmination of all The Surfrajettes' hard work - playing that well on a cruise ship is no easy task!

What has been your favorite Surfrajettes project so far, and why?

This is a tough one since all The Surfrajettes projects as a whole have been my favourite so far. However, photographing the back of the “Easy as Pie” album might just be the one! I love collaborating with Shermy, her ideas translate so well. I’ve done a lot of still life photography but I don’t often get to reference authentic vintage photos when I do, so that was a lot of fun.

How did you approach the “Easy As Pie” single art? What obstacles or breakthrough moments happened along the way?

From working on the back cover I had pulled lots of inspiration from vintage cook books and food advertising, so I dug a little deeper. I found a lot of books that used a Mondrian-like composition to illustrate the book’s content and leaned into that. I thought it was a great way to include a direct reference to a period of graphic design around food.

What I didn’t fully anticipate was how unforgiving pie is to work with (ironically, not easy as pie, ha!). This required some emergency pie purchases, last minute problem solving and a very patient pie assistant (aka my husband).

If you could choose the next Surfrajettes album concept, what would it be and why?

The Surfrajettes are great at making really cinematic surf songs, and I’m a big fan of spy movie music (the guitar part on the original James Bond is so iconic). So naturally, I think a surf-spy instrumental album would be really cool musically (and visually). I can already imagine the Matt Helm-eqsue album cover…

What is your go-to diner order, and - of course - what kind of pie would you get for dessert?

I am a breakfast-all-day kinda gal, so I’ll take 2 scrambled eggs with sausage, hashbrowns and rye toast please! Followed by one generous slice of key lime pie.