Cleo Reed - ‘CUNTRY’ (Album Release & Rollout)

Creative Producer • Art Direction • Album Campaign • Visual Identity

CUNTRY is the sophomore album from multidisciplinary artist Cleo Reed, an expansive work of musical world-building that reconstructs the mythology of America through a Black, queer, and working-class lens. Rejecting traditional genre boundaries, the album moves fluidly between folk, country, hip-hop, soul, noise, and experimental sound, using the language of Americana to question who has historically been included—and excluded—from its cultural narratives.

Throughout the record, Reed explores themes of labor, land stewardship, environmental collapse, class struggle, ancestry, migration, mutual aid, and survival. Rural landscapes become sites of both oppression and possibility, while farming, craftsmanship, and collective work are reclaimed as acts of resistance rather than symbols of nostalgia. Rather than romanticizing the American countryside, CUNTRY imagines an alternative mythology where Black and queer communities are not erased from the landscape, but positioned at the center of its future.

The album constructs a living ecosystem populated by workers, caretakers, musicians, neighbors, and organizers, people whose relationships to one another become the foundation for imagining new forms of community. Its visual and sonic language draws equally from handmade traditions and speculative futures, embracing imperfection, improvisation, and resourcefulness as expressions of resilience. In doing so, CUNTRY transforms familiar symbols of Americana into something radically inclusive, asking what new stories emerge when those who have historically been marginalized become the architects of the nation's cultural identity.

As Art Director and Creative Producer, I partnered closely with Cleo over the course of a seven-month campaign to develop and execute the visual rollout surrounding the album's release. Working across album packaging, digital media, editorial imagery, merchandise, music videos, and live performance assets, my role was to build a cohesive visual identity capable of evolving alongside the album's narrative while introducing audiences to the world of CUNTRY long before its release.

I helped establish the project's visual language by illustrating the artwork for the album's two lead singles while contributing typography treatments, graphic design, and identity development across the album packaging, wordmark, promotional graphics, and tour merchandise. Every visual element was designed to reinforce the album's themes of reclamation, Black futurity, and genre expansion while maintaining a consistent identity across physical and digital platforms.

Beyond the visual identity itself, I developed and led the campaign's long-form social media rollout strategy, building anticipation through a carefully paced seven-month release plan that introduced the project's themes, imagery, and collaborators ahead of the album launch and accompanying tour. The campaign combined editorial storytelling with behind-the-scenes content, motion graphics, illustration, and short-form video to create an evolving narrative that invited audiences into the album's creative process.

Spanning illustration, branding, creative production, styling, motion, and campaign strategy, the project demonstrates a holistic approach to creative direction: one that extends beyond designing individual assets to building an interconnected visual ecosystem capable of carrying an artist's story across every audience touchpoint. The result was a campaign that established a distinctive visual identity for CUNTRY, supporting its release through a cohesive body of work that evolved from the first single through the album launch and tour.

In addition, I styled and conceptualized multiple editorial and press photo shoots, creating imagery that supported album promotion across streaming platforms, press features, social media, and live performance announcements.

Reels Music Videos

As Creative Producer, I oversaw the production of multiple campaign assets, producing five promotional reels while assembling and managing creative collaborators to support content creation throughout the rollout. I coordinated production timelines, creative deliverables, and visual consistency across each release, ensuring every piece contributed to a unified campaign experience.

Also serving as Co-Creative Director on two music videos, collaborating closely with the artist and production team to translate the album's visual identity into moving image.