Evaluation

For this project I had many options but only one of them really spoke to me. Music is something that I’m very passionate about and combining that with my love for art, graphic design and photography, it seemed like the best suited choice for me. I also looked forward to working with a band and seeing their creative vision. I find abstract designs and the unorthodox interesting, so I decided that when I get to choose between working with a rock or an indie band, an indie band sounded more challenging and freeing. I learnt that they were called Poet’s Corner. I initially thought that I would get very specific creative directions and inspirations that they wanted me to draw from and how they wanted the end product to look, however they seemed to be very laid back and let me come up with the ideas. This is very much a double-edged sword as much as I could design and research to my heart’s content, this is a project and I have a deadline so I was a bit apprehensive about the lack of direction as it would mean my research would be broader and perhaps less relevant. Looking back on it, I'm thankful I got more freedom as I don’t think they knew what creative vision they wanted for an album cover, and didn't know how their sound would be translated to a cover to represent them. 

 

A few people who were also doing an album cover alongside me set up a podcast with Poet’s Corner where we asked them questions about themselves, their personalities, how they got together, the instruments they play, who they look up to, and what inspirations they had in mind for an album cover. I think that their answers to questions directly about the album cover left a lot to be desired. They didn’t really know what they would want an album cover to look like, however when they talked about themselves and how they describe their sound, it gave me a better look into their identity as a band and their musical creative vision which was useful.

 

For the research, I reflected on the podcast with the band and looked at their musical inspirations album covers. This included Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead. They stressed the abstract British indie influences in the podcast so I researched 2 different covers from each band respectively. I looked at A Moon Shaped Pool from Radiohead and Arctic Monkeys’ Favourite Worst Nightmare. Both of these albums explored abstract themes in different ways and their use of colour was something I later used for inspiration. A Moon Shaped Pool explored the themes of losing oneself and this can be clearly seen in the album cover. The cover is greyscale and features a destroyed self portrait. During my research I learnt that this portrait was actually painted and left outside in the elements for days, and that element of mixed media and unorthodox destruction left an impression on me as something I wanted to explore within my own work. Radiohead is a very big inspiration for me and their album covers have always resonated with me with how they repurpose images and distort them to fit their message is something I wanted to interpret when I chose making an album cover. Secondly, I looked at Favourite Worst Nightmare. This album cover is a lot more straightforward than the other one but still shows a clear creative message to be found. The juxtaposition between the dark and cold exterior of the houses and the uplifting and inviting colours and shapes showed how people perceived lower income housing. Also how the inside was more warm and comforting was a decision that I thought was very uplifting and inspiring, which is what makes it one of the album covers I chose to research. For my research on more historical album covers, I looked at Frank Sinatra’s Come Fly With Me and The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Both these albums featured vibrant and welcoming colours and clearly showed the information of the band. These album covers definitely helped me realise what things are needed on a good album cover. As if you are selling physical copies in stores like they were, you needed to know what you were buying, and a cover helped you identify the album if you have never seen it before. Therefore, I researched the colours and themes of the album and linked them to the album itself to see how both these covers represented the music they were advertising.

 

I also looked into different fonts and Gestalt principles, these helped me with my design and identity of the band as I had never really created that many logos before and I wanted to try and redesign the band’s original logo along with the album cover. I looked at band logos such as Kings of Leon, Nirvana, and Arctic Monkeys. I chose these because they have a wide array of different themes, styles, and genres. I wanted to try and use the formal name of Poet’s Corner to influence my designs, and therefore the first one I looked at was the very flowing and elegant logo of Kings of Leon. I liked how the letters connected and looked very cohesive, without compromising legibility and aesthetics. I wanted to make sure that my logo was at least legible, so I wanted to take a lot of different designs and styles into mind in order to find something that could both promote the band and represent them faithfully. I then looked at both Nirvana and Arctic Monkeys. The blocky and unorganised feel of the Arctic Monkeys logo is something that I thought would fit the band’s identity well, as the gritty indie themes they wanted to channel in their music would be better suited for a logo that looked the part as well. I liked the simplicity of Nirvana’s logo and it showed how simple yet effective a properly made identity can be.

 

I then continued my research on album covers and looked into 2 new album cover designs and I also explored colour theory in more detail. Firstly, for my colour theory I looked at Metallica’s Master Of Puppets and showed the connotations that different colours can carry with them and how that can be used to learn about the band and their sound. The use of red, orange, black, and white in the cover to symbolise harshness, boldness and contrast is a technique I wanted to replicate in my work and I wanted to make sure that a creative message was clearly seen. The Two album covers I then looked at were Meek Mill’s DC4 Mixtape and Slanted and Enchanted By Pavement. These two covers both feature mixed media, which is something I wanted to explore. DC4 is a very straightforward album cover, and features a mugshot of Meek Mill on a background of court papers, painted in orange whilst the mugshot itself is in black and white. Using colours to divert and bring attention to specific parts of a cover was also very inspiring to me and was a creative choice I could use to create a narrative with my final product. In this case, it is used to show the audience how Meek Mill himself is overshadowed by his criminal past and the fact that they are bright and orange compared to him. Slanted and Enchanted was a very interesting album cover to research and a very inspirational and worthwhile cover to choose. The album cover is a defaced version of a classic piano album, Keyboard Kapers. I think that the act of destroying something to create something else is a very interesting concept and this example is especially tied into both mixed media and my research on distortion. When it comes to the effectiveness of my research, I think that the accuracy and relevancy of it gets better as the project moves on. As these last two album covers that I have researched impacted me the most and I think their influences can be seen with both covers, Especially the use of tasteful destruction with pixel sorting referencing Slanted and Enchanted, and the use of writing as a background and overall mixed media using text from DC4.

 

For my experimentation, I think that it had mixed results. I wanted to use photography to help me reference different urban scenes and perhaps distort them as a part of my final product, but there weren't a lot of different buildings and areas that were what I was looking for and therefore I didn’t get as many samples as I would’ve liked. However, I think the pictures I did get were of good quality and did fit the gritty British theme I was going for. After this, I then did some sketches of possible scenes for my album cover, and thought about where I would place information such as band names and album names. If I were to do this again, I would more thoroughly plan my album layout, as I did not include back cover designs or disk designs, which I think hindered me later on as I had to do experimentation and deliver my final product at the same time. After this, I began working on my graphic design and photo manipulation. I used some of the photos I took to distort them using pixel sorting and other distortion filters. I think these came out very well and show the creative direction I wanted to take with this album cover. However, I would’ve liked more diverse experimentation as I don't think I practised as many techniques as I thought I should have. I then moved on to creating logos for the band. Using my research and information on the band’s background, I created two very opposing designs. One was more elegant and flowing, using accents and thickness to make the logo interesting but perhaps sacrificing readability. The other logo was made with the help of a font and attempts to mimic a stencil design found in street art. I contacted the band and showed them the experimentation I had done so far, and they were happy with the creative direction I was going into and they chose the second, rougher logo for me to use going forward. For my final bit of experimentation, I focused on creating a full mockup and working on my text manipulation techniques and creaking things such as a tracklist. I think these went very well, however I wish to incorporate more mixed media into my experimentation as I think I could have had more ideas to help me express my vision if I had more time to develop them.

 

My ideas began when I was doing my research and curating my moodboard, when I was looking at mixed media art and I found the depth the added layers of media offered and how it made images more interesting and impressive. I wanted to try and use my pictures of buildings and transform them using mixed media in some way. I also wanted to explore pixel sorting in some way because I found the way it changed images to be interesting, and it allowed some elements of the image to be preserved through the use of thresholds. Another one of my ideas was to do a photoshoot with the band, however they weren’t as responsive as I’d like and I didn’t want to compromise my project waiting for them to respond. Another one of my ideas was to use street photography more and possibly do a collage of sorts, incorporating mixed media as well. This idea didn't work out as I said before, there weren't many photography opportunities nearby. I decided to focus my album cover on the shapes and photos of the same building, as it allowed me to show increased image manipulation and would challenge myself into getting creative with how I used these images.

 

I think my final idea was a good mixture of my research and experimentation, and is full of techniques I wouldn’t have been able to pull off before I was on this course. I did have to cut corners in some places, but I fulfilled my goal of blending graphic design and digital art along with physical forms of mixed media to create something truly unique. I made 2 album covers, with back covers for both. I did this so I could show a wider range of techniques compared to shoving all my experience into one album cover. For the first one, I feel like the back cover could be improved slightly as I had to use a digital image of a piece of paper, and had to run it through filters to make it seem realistic. Ideally, I would have scanned the paper myself and wrote on it beforehand so it would be realistic. In the front cover, I forgot to include shadows on the windows that I cut out from the building image that was obscured by light, slightly removing the immersion that I wanted to have with these techniques. In the second cover, I don’t think there's anything I would change on the front cover, however in my opinion, the back cover is my weakest design yet. I used some new and interesting techniques to make it such as displacement maps (using an image of a tree below the tower building as a map), however the tracklist itself was lacklustre and lacked any realism and wasn't as thought out and photorealistic as I had hoped. 

 

Throughout the project, I learnt many things such as colour grading, pixel sorting, displacement maps, perspective warps, layer blending, hue manipulation, creating logos, mixed media techniques, and time management, though I still have a long way to go when it comes to technique and professional responsibilities. I think that this project has helped me develop tremendously and working with a client was a fun but challenging experience that I’m glad I chose. I think my final product turned out well and I’m very proud of it and how many techniques I used, however as previously stated I think that my experimentation is lacking, and I would have liked to experiment more with mixed media instead of diving straight in, even if it was a secondary focus in the album cover itself. If I was to do this project again, I would definitely plan my time a lot more efficiently, and I would try to do more meaningful research and experimentation. This would include exploring more locations for photography, more techniques for distortion and manipulation, and more genres to research. Overall though, I’m proud of what I have done in this project and I think it was a success, even if it wasn’t as optimised and relevant as I had hoped. I also think that I didn’t communicate my reasoning and decision-making enough, making some research and experimentation seem disjointed and unrelated.