James King
Foundation
ALBUM COVER
graphic communication
Genre Research
5 Genres I am going to explore are​... EDM, 80s, Indie, Lo-Fi, Rock
Electronic
Dance Music
Electronic dance music, also known as EDM, umbrella term for a panoply of musical styles that emerged in the mid-1980s. Rather than designating a single genre, electronic dance music (EDM) encompasses styles ranging from beatless ambient music to 200-beats-per-minute hardcore, with house music, techno, drum and bass, dubstep, and trance among the most-notable examples. Considered as a whole, electronic dance music is characterized by several defining features. It is typified by deliberately inorganic sounds and timbres, frequently produced by cheap early-1980s gear—such as the 303 bass synthesizer and the 808 drum machine, both made by Japanese electronics firm Roland—or built from samples of previous recordings. Live instrumentation and singing are often featured but usually as a garnish rather than the main dish. Most important, the music is created specifically for the social function of dancing all night. A strong emphasis on rhythm is therefore common to most styles of EDM, while ambient music, which is less focused on maintaining a beat, provides an aural cushion for settling down at the end of the night.
(From: https://www.britannica.com/art/electronic-dance-music)
80s​
Music in the 1980s was all about image and with the advent and popularity of MTV, the images that accompanied artists became more important than ever. When it came to music during the decade, nothing was understated, not the sound, not the fashion, not even the charity. The 1980s reflected the beginning of a period of great income disparity and a focus on affluence was reflected in the music. There were also several new genres that popped up including, Hip Hop, New Wave and Hair Metal, all of which have influenced music today. Arguably the most important event to influence music during the 1980s was the creation of the cable network MTV (Music Television). MTV was the first network to exclusively showcase music videos, making its debut on August 1st, 1981. The first music video to be played on the channel was, appropriately, the Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star," as music would forever change and the focus would shift from music and lyrics to fashion and theatrics, at least in the world of pop music. The original concept of the network was to play music videos twenty-four hours a day, every day. And, while this has obviously changed since then, the innovative concept created a whole new breed of pop star.
Lo-Fi
A type of non-lyrical* music that contains origins and influences from Boom-Bap/ New York Underground instrumentals, 1960's and 1070's jazz samples, and electronic music. It's name, Lo-Fi comes from the term "low-Fidelity" which in this case if reference to the sounds of vinyl crackle and sample distortion which is used in a number of ways, namely the provocation of nostalgia, and to distance the sample or melody from any other song with a similar sound. Lo-Fi is primarily composed of a beat (similar to that of a hip-hop beat but with less bass) and looped samples (commonly used samples include piano melodies and clips of Wes Montgomery) most songs are relaxing and evoke positive emotions, often time nostalgia.
(From: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Lo-fi)
Indie
Rather than a sound, indie comprises all independently recorded music. Its artists release music on their own record label or an independent label, meaning a record label unaffiliated with a major record label.Indie music comprises a broad spectrum of music spanning all genres. You’ll find indie country, indie pop, indie rock. Any genre normally controlled by major labels features an indie genre. Most artists create music of this genre on a low to mid-sized budget. Its audience generally ranges from teenagers to 35 year olds.
Indie bands do heavily influence one another which produces similar sounds. In general, indie music features a clear melody and simple instrumentation. The influence of folk and country music pervades and many songs feature violin or piano. The musical composition often features a four instrument main combination of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass guitar and drums with harmonized vocals. Its simple arrangements make it easy to cover the songs, making it popular with young musicians. Indie music encourages experimentation. It may draw from fields besides folk and country, as far flung as electronica, jam rock also known as psychedelia, or Japanese noise. Its guitar parts use standard and power chords which also lends its music to being easy for young players to learn.
(From: https://official.fm/indie/)
Rock
It is certainly arguable that by the end of the 20th century rock was the world’s dominant form of popular music. Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it spread to other English-speaking countries and across Europe in the ’60s, and by the ’90s its impact was obvious globally (if in many different local guises). Rock’s commercial importance was by then reflected in the organization of the multinational recording industry, in the sales racks of international record retailers, and in the playlist policies of music radio and television. If other kinds of music—classical, jazz, easy listening, country, folk, etc.—are marketed as minority interests, rock defines the musical mainstream. And so over the last half of the 20th century it became the most inclusive of musical labels—everything can be “rocked”—and in consequence the hardest to define. To answer the question, What is rock?, one first has to understand where it came from and what made it possible. And to understand rock’s cultural significance, one has to understand how it works socially as well as musically.
Album Designers
YURI
SHWEDOFF
EDM ALBUM COVER
Yuri Shwedoff is a Russian Digital artist, painter, and photographer who was behind the cover for ODESZA's single "Loyal". The song was used in the advert for the iPhone X, and appears in the deluxe edition of ODESZA's album "A Moment Apart", that released in 2018.
From looking at his Instagram, he has done lots of high quality work, including photography, and design work.
Instagram - www.instagram.com/yurishwedoff
SEANEN
MIDDLETON
EDM ALBUM COVER
Seanen Middleton is a Biritsh Visual Artist from Manchester, who was responsible for ODESZA's "A Moment Apart" album, as well as their single "Line of Sight". From looking at the rest of his Instagram, he makes lots of cool photos with distorted effects to them.
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Instagram - www.instagram.com/seanenmiddleton/
Experiments
BLUE MONDAY
NEW ORDER
My first experiment involved remaking New Order's Blue Monday album cover. It originally released in 1988 and was designed by Peter Saville, a British artist. I first remade the cover as closely as possible, and then changed up the colours to brighter, more modern ones. I then experimented with cutting some of the circles up to give it a more futuristic look, and added glow effects to some of them to give it more depth.
BLUE MONDAY
NEW ORDER
My first experiment involved remaking New Order's Blue Monday album cover. It originally released in 1988 and was designed by Peter Saville, a British artist. I first remade the cover as closely as possible, and then changed up the colours to brighter, more modern ones. I then experimented with cutting some of the circles up to give it a more futuristic look, and added glow effects to some of them to give it more depth.
Drawing & Painting to Music
This experiment involved making art while listening to music to see what differences between songs and genres looked like. For more gentle songs the picture looks more relaxes and uses more gradual lines, where as faster songs have more sharper lines and have more going on.
Development
INITIAL IDEAS
​Album Design Ideas
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Distorted Photos - Distort pictures of landscapes in Photoshop, as this is a recurring theme with EDM covers.
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Light Painting - Analogue or Digital.
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Typography - Have big titles with a style of the song. Incorporate
Song Ideas​
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The Nights - Avicii (A picture of a city at night could be cool for a cover)
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A Sky Full of Stars - Coldplay (Could take a picture of the stars and do something with that)
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Problems - A R I Z O N A (I relate to the song so could do a deep meaning thing)
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Silhouettes - Avicii (Could have silhouettes on the cover)
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SOS - Avicii, Aloe Blacc (Could have SOS really big with something inside the letters)
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Happier - Marshmello
Album Ideas
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Night Visions - Imagine Dragons
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Escapism - Audien
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A Moment Apart - ODESZA (Could distort something to look like its apart from something else)
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My friend makes music so I could ask him if he hays any songs planned that don't have an album cover design yet.
AUDIEN
ESCAPISM
In this experiment, I created an album cover for Audien's album "Escapism". I used illustration for this cover and created a mountain with sun rays leaking out, as I think the mountains is a good place to escape to. It has a very simple design, which contrasts my cover for ODESZA's "A Moment Apart" which is much more complex. I designed this cover in Illustrator using the pen tool. I like it as it has a very simple and clean appearance and the colours go really well together.
NIGHT VISIONS
IMAGINE DRAGONS
Front Cover
For this experiment, I tried to do something very different to the last two. The album was "Night Visions" by Imagine Dragons. I immediately thought of constellations as they are effectively night visions. I kept it quite simple but also, there's a lot going on. I really like how this one came out as it really fits with the album name and looks really nice.
Back Cover
I also made the back cover for Night Visions which features a song list of all 14 songs. I've kept the design of this very similar to the front cover, bringing over some of the constellations and using the same background.
IMAGINE DRAGONS
RADIOACTIVE
Single Variation
My other alternate cover for a pre-album release is Radioactive, which is from the Night Visions album. I used mostly the same design as the main cover but added a radioactive symbol to make it very obvious which song it is.
Final Outcome
ODESZA
A MOMENT APART
Front Cover
This is my final outcome that I created from my idea of distorting images, so i took a landscape picture and rotated parts of the image around. This also really works with the album name "a moment apart" as the rotated parts are apart from the rest of the image. Doing this as circles works really well too as it perfectly fits ODESZA's prism logo in the centre. I also really love the text in the corners saying the album and artist name, as it has also been rotated.
Back Cover
I made the back cover for "A Moment Apart" which features a song list of all 16 songs on the album. I also added a barcode, and copyright label. I kept the design similar to the front using the same picture and border. I also took the same hexagon shape and filled it with a dark gray colour to put the song list in.
ODESZA
LATE NIGHT
Single Variation
I made alternate versions of the covers for singles that would come out before the main album. So this is for ODESZA's song "Late Night" which uses a picture of the beach which I took and the same layout as the album cover.
Merchandise
T-Shirts
Here are some T-Shirt designs for ODESZA's "A Moment Apart". I made a basic one which features the album cover on it, and a more interesting version below which features the two rotated rings, ODESZA prism, and text of the artist and album name.
Promotional
Tour Card
I designed a Tour Card for ODESZA which features an A4 version of the album cover, with dates and cities on the back. This card would be given out at other tours, and in nearby cities. A digital version would be displayed on the website as well.
Album On a Billboard
I used a Billboard mockup to display an advert for the album that is similar to the first mockup for the cover. This would be placed on the side of a main road or motorway near a big city that they could be touring at.
Evaluation
I have done what the brief asked of me as I have created a final album cover (along with a back cover), a piece of merchandise in the form of a T-Shirt, and a promotional advert for the Album in the form of a billboard. I researched two designers that were responsible for the existing ODESZA songs and albums, which was very useful as I could see what had already been done with my chosen artist, as well as see any iconic ODESZA design elements that I could incorporate into my cover, which ended up being the prism shaped logo. I also looked into what else the two designers have done and found that Seanen Middleton's (who designed A Moment Apart's official album cover) work is very different to the album cover he created, as he does lots of photography where he then adds effects in Photoshop. My strengths in this project were having skills in the three main Adobe programs as well as being able to design for an artist who I really enjoy listening to. I find projects that have a set client much easier and better to design as I am able to research into them and what they've done before, so I can get an idea on what style would fit them. My weaknesses in this project were having limited resources to print my album cover, as I would've liked to print it out on card and give it either a glossy or matte finish, however we were unable to do this. My other problem I had was trying to fit all the text elements into the album, but I eventually fixed that problem. Materials I used for the album cover was paper, however I wanted to make it on card as mentioned above. Digital tools I used were the transform and rotate tools in Photoshop, the pen and shape tools in Illustrator, and Image trace to get a crisp version of the font from Dafont screenshots as the font cost money. My work has changed over time as I originally came up with the vector design and wanted to progress in that direction, but then I experimented with other styles such as the Night Visions style, but eventually stuck with the distorted photos idea. I think my final album cover is very successful as I am really happy with the design. It's very different to what I've done before, but it is one of my favourite designs. I think all the colours and fonts go really well together, and I love how the rotated portions of the cover symbolise the "moment apart" that the album is titled. I think I could improve by making some more examples of where this design could be used, such as I could animate parts of the cover that could be shown in the background of a live show or on Spotify's new video backgrounds.