SELFED MADE // FUTURE OF FUNK TRANSMISSION

The Future of Funk Trading Cards

A vertical montage preserving the Future of Funk trading card evolution, including finished cards, alternate versions, and visual experiments from the archive.

How a simple artist identity roster became collectible commander mythology, a neon visual language, and a living archive documenting the people behind the music.

More Than an Artist Roster

When I started The Future of Funk, I knew one thing immediately.

I wasn't about to let thirty-nine artists get reduced to thirty-nine names on a tracklist.

That wasn't the vision.

Every artist needed their own identity.

Not just a logo.

Not just a name.

Not just another post that gets buried in a feed a few days later.

I wanted people to stop scrolling for just a second and think,

"Who is that?"

That single question became the foundation of the trading cards.

At its core, the idea was simple.

Create a complete artist identity roster.

Every producer.

Every DJ.

Every remixer.

Every contributor.

Everyone gets their own card.

Not because they're larger than life.

Because every one of them helped build Future of Funk.

I didn't want people to remember only the album.

I wanted them to remember the people behind it.

The inspiration came from everywhere.

Garbage Pail Kids.

Baseball cards.

Pokémon.

Comic books.

Movie posters.

Even The Usual Suspects.

Baseball cards made every player feel important.

Garbage Pail Kids exaggerated personalities until they became unforgettable.

Comic books could introduce a character before they ever spoke.

Movie posters made someone feel larger than life.

I wanted to combine all of those ideas...

but for underground electronic music.

The front of the card had one job.

Grab your attention.

As everything moved into a digital world, there wasn't really a "back of the card" anymore.

So the front had to do more.

The artwork had to communicate personality.

Identity.

Energy.

The back—or the digital archive beneath the card—could handle everything else.

The stats.

The story.

The artist.

The music.

The history.

The links.

The archive.

The artwork pulls you in.

The archive gives it meaning.

That was always the foundation.

Then Everything Changed

What I didn't expect...

was what happened next.

The original goal was simply to build an artist identity roster.

That was it.

I wasn't trying to build an entire science-fiction universe.

I just wanted every artist to have something memorable.

Then the cards started taking on a life of their own.

At the time I was working with an earlier generation of AI.

Nothing like what exists today.

Memory drift was real.

I'd finally get the pose right...

then the face would change.

I'd fix the face...

then the lighting would fall apart.

I'd fix the lighting...

then the composition would break.

Sometimes it took twenty...

thirty...

or even more generations before one image finally matched what I had in my head.

People love saying AI does all the work.

The reality was the opposite.

The work wasn't pressing a button.

The work was directing.

Correcting.

Rebuilding.

Trying again.

Over and over.

Looking back, I don't want to hide those failed generations.

I want people to see them.

Because they're part of the story.

They show how the project evolved.

Then something happened I never expected.

The artists themselves started getting involved.

Some laughed.

Some immediately wanted their own card.

Some started sending ideas back.

"Give me more laser guns."

"Take the laser guns away."

"Put me with aliens."

"Make me darker."

"Make it crazier."

Some wanted something completely ridiculous.

It slowly became a running joke between all of us.

Before long, the trading cards stopped being something I was creating by myself.

The artists started sending ideas back.

Brad Lee would send me alternate versions.

Jon Perx started building on the concept.

Other artists wanted more laser guns.

Some wanted fewer.

Some wanted aliens.

Some wanted mechs.

Others wanted something completely ridiculous.

The trading cards became an ongoing conversation between the artists as much as they were pieces of artwork.

But it was never making fun of anyone.

It was celebrating them.

Everybody's personality slowly found its way into their own card.

That's when I realized something.

I wasn't making portraits anymore.

I was translating personalities into characters.

Not literal versions of people.

Character amplification.

The cards weren't documenting appearances.

They were documenting energy.

Every artist became the version of themselves their music and personality suggested.

That's why Roberto Milanesi became the larger-than-life El Brujo—a mystical warrior whose attitude was every bit as recognizable as his music. Anyone who knows Roberto immediately recognizes that energy. The card simply amplified it inside the Future of Funk universe.

That's why Alex Ridley evolved into Communications & Intelligence—the commander's eyes and ears, intercepting transmissions, tracking anomalies, coordinating reconnaissance, gathering intelligence, and uncovering what lay ahead before the rest of the fleet even knew it was there.

That's why Jon Perx became the Strike Force Commander, leading combat operations deeper into hostile territory.

That's why Unknown Function became the Silent Assassin, reflecting the hypnotic precision and atmosphere that define his music.

Not because those people literally are those characters.

Because that's what their music, personalities, and the roles they naturally grew into felt like inside the Future of Funk universe.

The trading cards weren't created because I wanted to build a science-fiction universe. The science-fiction universe emerged because I kept trying to give real artists memorable identities. One idea simply kept leading to the next.

The Veronica Breakthrough

Then one artist's trading cards changed everything.

Samurai Tech.

While creating Takashi's trading cards, I started experimenting with different ideas around his world, his personality, and eventually Veronica—his beloved poodle.

Veronica in the pink mech suit—the moment the visual identity of Future of Funk came together.

At first it was just another experiment.

Veronica inside a giant pink futuristic mech suit.

Playful.

Unexpected.

Completely ridiculous in the best possible way.

I wasn't trying to create the visual identity of Future of Funk.

I was simply trying to make something that fit Takashi's personality and made people smile.

Then I saw it.

Everything clicked.

The colors.

The chrome.

The neon pink.

The cyan.

The deep purples.

The anime influence.

The balance between humor and cinematic science fiction.

That single card became the breakthrough.

It helped establish the visual language I had been searching for.

From that point forward, the trading cards no longer felt like individual pieces.

They felt like they belonged to the same universe.

The visual language naturally spread into later commander artwork, promotional pieces, and eventually influenced much of the Future of Funk campaign.

It wasn't planned.

It evolved.

Around that same time another breakthrough happened.

The Future of Funk command suit.

The illuminated armor.

The glowing chest displays.

The animated lighting.

The commander's name built directly into the suit.

The Chicago Jaxxx branding integrated into the armor itself.

That became the standard appearance for the commanders moving forward.

The suit became the visual thread that unified dozens of completely different artists into one believable universe.

No matter who the artist was, they immediately felt like they belonged to the same fleet.

Different personalities.

Different missions.

One universe.

From Trading Cards to a Universe

The trading cards also found a natural home inside the existing Future of Funk promotional template.

The template already existed.

The ship.

The music.

The ending.

The trading cards simply became the artist reveal inside that framework.

The Future of Funk ship would fly away.

The commander's trading card would appear.

The artist's music would continue playing.

The branding stayed consistent.

Every artist looked different.

Every commander had their own personality.

But the visual language remained familiar.

That wasn't an accident.

Consistency creates recognition.

Every video reinforced the artist.

The release.

Chicago Jaxxx.

The Future of Funk identity.

I always tried to keep those visual anchors present.

The artist.

The label.

The project.

The more consistently people saw them together, the more recognizable they became.

Over time something interesting happened.

People started recognizing the Future of Funk universe before they even recognized the individual artist.

That wasn't something I planned.

It simply evolved that way.

None of this repetition was accidental. Every recurring visual element—the ship, the command suit, the mascot, the trading card reveal, the Chicago Jaxxx branding, and the artist's music—was designed to build familiarity over time. The psychology behind that approach became its own part of the Future of Funk story, and it deserves its own chapter.

While creating trading card concepts with Wyndell Long, one of the alien characters unexpectedly stood out.

The Future of Funk mascot moment.

She wasn't originally designed to become the mascot.

She simply worked.

What began as another trading card experiment gradually evolved into one of the most recognizable visual symbols of the entire campaign.

That character eventually evolved into the Future of Funk mascot.

She appeared throughout the promotional campaign.

Standing beside the ship.

Appearing throughout the videos.

Welcoming viewers into the universe.

She became another recognizable piece of the visual identity.

Over time, the mascot became much more than a recurring character. She became the visual thread that tied the campaign together through repetition, familiarity, and recognition. That story became large enough to deserve its own chapter.

Not because I sat down and decided Future of Funk needed a mascot.

Because experimentation naturally led there.

Just like the trading cards themselves.

One idea inspired another.

The cards inspired the visual language.

The visual language inspired the command suits.

The command suits strengthened the promotional videos.

The promotional videos strengthened the mythology.

Each creative decision built upon the one before it.

Looking back now, none of it feels accidental.

It feels like the project slowly discovered what it wanted to become.

More Than Trading Cards

Looking back now, the trading cards became much more than artist introductions.

They became documentation.

Every card documented a real person.

A real collaborator.

A real friendship.

A real contribution.

The fictional world was simply the vehicle.

Underneath it were real DJs.

Real producers.

Real remixers.

Real labels.

Real conversations.

Real relationships.

The cards became the place where those two worlds met.

The bloopers matter.

The alternate versions matter.

The AI mistakes matter.

The revisions matter.

Because they document the creative process instead of pretending everything appeared fully formed.

One day, someone may discover a finished trading card.

Another person may discover an early version.

Someone else might watch the montage of every failed attempt that eventually led to the final design.

Together, those pieces tell a much bigger story than any single image ever could.

The trading cards started as an artist identity roster.

They evolved into a living archive.

Not because that was the original plan.

Because that's where the creative process naturally led.

At the end of the day, these cards were never really about pretending artists were superheroes.

They were about translating the feeling of someone's music...

their personality...

their friendships...

their history...

and their contribution...

into collectible science-fiction characters.

The mythology is fictional.

The people are real.

Looking back, the trading cards became proof of something much bigger than Future of Funk.

They proved the philosophy that SELFED MADE was built on.

No artist exists in isolation.

Every release is shaped by friendships.

Collaborations.

Ideas.

Late-night conversations.

Constructive criticism.

Creative disagreements.

Shared experiences.

Moments of inspiration.

People helping each other become better.

Every trading card represents one person.

Together they become something no tracklist ever could.

A visual record of the people behind the music.

A community preserved instead of forgotten.

That's what SELFED MADE has always been about.

Not simply documenting releases.

Documenting the people behind them.

Music fades.

Social media timelines disappear.

Algorithms change.

Websites come and go.

But stories endure when someone chooses to preserve them.

That's what this archive is.

Not just a collection of trading cards.

Not just an album promotion.

Not just a science-fiction universe.

It's a historical record of the people who came together to build Future of Funk.

Years from now, someone might discover a commander's trading card...

read their story...

listen to their music...

watch their montage...

follow the connections to other artists...

and realize they weren't looking at thirty-nine names on a tracklist.

They were looking at thirty-nine people who each helped shape a moment in underground electronic music.

In the end, that's what the trading cards became.

An artist identity roster.

A visual language.

A shared mythology.

A living archive.

And one more way of proving something I've believed from the very beginning...

No one succeeds entirely alone.