Darden Smith, ‘Love Calling’

Partner DJ Stout and designer Stu Taylor in Pentagram's Austin office have designed a new CD package, posters and a lyric book for Austin-based musician Darden Smith. The multi-talented singer-songwriter's newest release on Compass Records, Love Calling, features a not-so-loving image of a woman strapped to a large wooden wheel with multiple swords protruding from her back. "Obviously this album features love songs," says Stout, "but as everyone knows, there's a very thin line between love and hate."

Included with the collection of love ballads is a song called "Angel Flight" that Smith wrote in 2009 with his friend Radney Foster. The song, which became a radio and Internet sensation, honors the military pilots who fly the planes that bring fallen soldiers home. That song gave Smith the idea for his successful Songwriting with Soldiers program, established in 2012, where the master songwriter works with veterans suffering from PTSD and other injuries. "The album also features a song about jealous love called 'I Smell Smoke,' and 'Baltimore' is a dark tale about shattered love and salvation," says Stout, "so the songs aren't all lovey-dovey. 'Angel Flight' is about the heart-wrenching consequences of war, so the violent image of the angelic-looking woman with the traditional weapons of warfare stuck in her back seemed to me to be an appropriate symbol for this collection of songs."

For local hero Smith, who's been writing songs and performing for 40 years, Love Calling opens a new chapter in the artist's prolific career and circles back to his musical roots. "And that's where the symbolism of the big wooden wheel on the cover comes into play," says Stout. "Darden is a hard worker and he's had his fair share of high points and low, both in music and love."

"I've been writing songs and making a living at it since I was 23," says Smith. "There was a time when I was very into music as a way to achieve something. And now I look at music as a way to live. It's not like I write songs in order to get anywhere. It's what I do. I view the world through writing songs. I look at music as this blessing I have, not like a choice. It's a necessity. Writing the song is all that matters, and I love writing songs more than ever."

Stout and Taylor also designed Smith's 2010 CD package, Marathon, a haunting song cycle named for a remote town in far West Texas. For that release the designers created a series of posters, cards and flyers and a lyric book featuring the work of renowned fine art photographer Kate Breakey.

"Darden is so talented and he's a great friend," says Stout. "We've managed to do some really nice work together over the years. We always love it when 'Darden's Calling.'"