In Profile: Alexis Marcou

Full Name: Alexis Marcou

Date of Birth: 24th March 1984

Alexis Marcou is a renowned designer known for his intricate, hand-drawn aesthetic and striking use of geometry and shading. With an impressive portfolio spanning global brands, his work has left a distinctive mark on contemporary design. A true music lover, and an avid audiophile, he inherited his passion from his father, who once ran a record store in Cyprus.

His connection to Phase began through a serendipitous encounter. Konstantinos Zacharakis, familiar with Alexis’ work, partly through his then bandmate Konstantinos Korobilis who has been a great admirer of his art (and whose HP laptop at the time featured Alexis‘ designs as native wallpapers) —approached him for advice while considering moving from graphic design to animation. Given Alexis’ background in animation studies at Plymouth, he seemed like the ideal person to consult.

Thanos was invited along to accompany Kostantinos Z in their initial meeting, and got confronted with a pleasant surprise when Alexis instantly recognised him and shared how much he enjoyed the way Phase presented their during that period, and revealed that his daily ritual upon entering his office at the time was to check what Phase were up to.

In Thanos‘ words;

We became good friends, bonding over our shared approach to art, a mutual appreciation for classic and post-rock bands, and a love for films and visionary directors. We spent countless hours discussing the philosophy of aesthetics, aesthetic cognitivism, and the mere exposure phenomenon.

When I relocated, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of pride seeing his signature series of pencils in nearly every art, book, and stationery store I walked into. I also distinctly remember a Christmas gathering I attended with Jonny , where someone unwrapped a set of pencils with Alexis‘ artwork on the box. When I mentioned that a friend had designed it, people thought I was making it up.

Alexis went on to befriend the rest of the band and its broader circle, all of whom instantly fell in love with his art.

It was a full-circle, defining moment when he designed the cover for Phase’s second album, The Wait, bringing his signature style to the music in a way that felt both natural and meaningful, not to mention pranking Damos as part of a social experiment with a two seconds draft he made, just to test and prove some observations made by the pair in the context of the aformentioned conversations.

Articles Mentioning Alexis:

https://phaseship.com/?s=alexis+marcou