Kerosene Halo, a Chicago-based boutique design firm, was co-founded by Gregory Sylvester and Thomas Wolfe in 1996. In four years, the two-person company designed corporate identities, catalogs, annual reports, web sites, film titles and more than 250 music packages, including the design of Madonna's Ray of Light, which went on to win a Grammy Award in the “Best Recording Package” category at the 41st Annual Grammy Awards. Other notable music packaging clients include Buddy Miller, Stone Temple Pilots, Phil Keaggy, Steven Curtis Chapman, Monk and Ramsey Lewis.
In 1999, Kerosene Halo merged with Chicago-based branding agency, VSA Partners. Clients included IBM, Harley-Davidson, General Electric, Cole Haan, Converse, Nike, Procter & Gamble, and Thomson Reuters. During this time, Sylvester and Wolfe also art-directed and designed a Grammy-nominated music package for The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1999 release “Machina/the machines of God.”
Kerosene Halo’s work has appeared in Step Magazine, Print Magazine, HOW Magazine, Communication Arts Magazine, Adobe Magazine, Critique Magazine, Crain's Chicago Business, Chicago Magazine, AIGA’s 50 Books/50 Covers Annual, and can currently be seen in the Library of Congress and (back in the day) nearly every record store in the world.