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(EN) The Sunny Side album, I had a lot to prove in terms of drawing, and the collaboration was delightful. And that's how the album cover for THE SUNNY SIDE's Piękne Życia Strofy (Beautiful Life Verses) came to be.
(PL) Słoneczna płyta, bardzo dużo tam miałem do wykazania się rysunkowego, przemiła współpraca. I tak powstał projekt płyty Piękne Życia Strofy dla THE SUNNY SIDE
Grafik pokazuje swoje projekty okładek płyt - THE SUNNY SIDE - Piękne Życia Strofy
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✵ ZEROBASEONE THE 1ST FULL ALBUM "NEVER SAY NEVER" ✵ DIGIPACK VERSION ✵
Digipack: Physical Media - Cassette and vinyl
With Vice primarily targeting young punks, the creation and selling of physical media would be imperative. This is not only due to the growing popularity of physical media, specifically cassette and vinyl, but also as it aids the band from relying solely on streaming platforms such as Apple Music and Spotify, which does not service the anti-establishment punk mentality. As such, the selling of physical media will serves as a stream of revenue for the band, and I wanted the designs to look as appealing as possible.
To maintain cohesion through my digipack, I re used the artworks made for the CD, however reworked them to suit the different formats and technicalities of cassette and vinyl.
Cassette
Inspirations
I again looked towards the digipack of Beabadoobee's 'Beatopia' for inspiration. Here, I wanted to understand how a square image was formatted to fit onto the rectangular cassette, as well as how information was laid out on the cassette itself, and ways it can correspond to the theme and overall feel of the product.
★ Beatopia
The designers for Beatopia opted to the crop the image to fit the margins of the cassette, a stylistic choice I wasn't particularly fond of, and thus needed to plan around as my original artworks were also created with the traditional square CD format. The font choice and graphic symbol of the butterfly were also maintained for the cassette, enabling cohesion throughout the Beatopia digipack, which is a sentiment I wanted to follow. I took note of the bold colour choices for the cassettes, specifically the use of colours that weren't majorly implemented in the album art such as olive and neon green, in addition to being fond of the far left indentation of detail.
Final
Following my analysis of the Beatopia cassette, my main takeaway was that I did not want my cassette artwork to be cropped. However, as I created my artworks with the square CD format in mind, I needed to either create new artwork entirely, or figure out a solution to make my illustrations fit on the cassette. I found a solution in combining the artwork from both the front and back covers, which did require the aid of photoshop. Despite this, as I used the same paper and the same drawing materials, the two illustrations blended together seamlessly, and only required minor compositional adjustments. This way, I avoided cropping and could have the illustrations suspended in white space, a look I find sleeker and more visually appealing.
For the cassette itself, I followed Beatopia's design philosophy of concentrating detail to one side, utilising my CD design for the cassette. However, I diverged from Beatopia by adding the songs that the side contained, to maintain balance throughout the piece. This also served a utilitarian purpose, enabling the consumer to know which songs are being listened to. Though I was fond of the bright colours the Beatopia cassettes offered, the juxtaposition between the comparatively muted colours of Beatopia and the boldness of the cassettes enabled a contrast that if replicated in my digipack, my already bright colours with a bright cassette would appear garish. As such, I took the opposite approach and made my cassette colours more pastel and muted, which perfectly balanced the product's aesthetics.
Vinyl
Inspirations
★ ...Baby One More Time
Though not a punk album, one of punk's core axioms is self expression and non-conformity. By not conforming to the traditional 'punk' design trends, and instead looking towards an album stemming from a highly oppositional genre, pop (or specifically bubblegum pop) my work still remains deeply rooted in the punk mentality. As such, I looked towards Britney Spears' ...Baby One More Time as inspiration for my record. I was fond of the pastel colours as well as the array of alternative vinyl designs, including but not limited to transparent records. The information layout of the central disc was also highly utilitarian, featuring the side, track list, copyright, and album and artist name. As such, I wanted to implement a similar layout on my final record.
Final
Again, I utilised a free .psd to create my record. I decided to keep the record cover the exact same as the CD cover, and thus it was eaisly included without change. I wanted to challenge myself to create a transparent vinyl mockup, which I achieved through lowering the opacity and using layer modes to adjust colours to create a pastel green. I followed the exact text and information layout on the ...Baby One More Time vinyl as I thought it was a highly efficient layout as well as being aesthetically pleasing, and thus come to a close on my physical digipack products.
Overall, I feel my physical media products are all highly successful in both aesthetics and displaying appropriate information. They, together, present as a cohesive pack and service presenting Vice as a modern punk band.
Digipack: CD - Second Draft
My first digipack paid homage to Raymond Pettibons comic-esque, monochromatic album covers. However, my attempts to replicate this style through the consolidation of poor line quality with a semi competent art style was incongruent, and resulted in the piece looking confused. I realised my attempts to reach a middle ground to make my art appear intentionally bad was not working, and thus needed to lean towards either end of the binary opposites of messy and clean. As such, I decided re-work my approach, and lean more towards the messy, more explicitly juvenile art direction.
Inspirations
★ Crest (Bladee, Ecco2k, 2022)
★ Beatopia (Beabadoobee, 2022)
★ Exeter (Bladee, 2020)
I then looked towards the artists from my original inspirational mood board. I recognised a trend in medium, using non-ink mediums that would often be seen in a kids classroom, such as both regular and coloured pencil, wax crayon and pastel. In addition to this, the use of wide, highly saturated colour palettes enables a childlike, jovial quality, a quality that is subverted by the pop-punk music the album represents.
In addition to this, the use of seemingly random, unrelated, and near surreal images as opposed to representing the artist is a very anti-commercial stance, one my original digipack did not adhere to as the sheer depiction of a band member has the most minor of implications of the band being identity driven, and by proxy utilising the self as a 'product', which goes against the punk mentality. As such, though in a wildly different direction to my original ideas, I decided to apply these qualities to my album artwork.
Criterion
★ Traditional, non ink mediums
★ Saturated colour palette
★ Random imagery (not including band members or logos)
Final Artwork
Front · Back
Following the above criterion, I produced these two artworks.
Though I wanted the imagery to appear random, the choices for each individual subject were strategic and were chosen in service to the punk mentality. The use of intertextual references, specifically Jim Davis' Garfield and Sanrio's Pompompurin, both child friendly IPs, in my artwork is not only characteristic of the punk 'cut and paste' culture, but also subverts their clean personas through inclusion on such a provocative album. I wanted to push being intentionally provocative through a bastardised depiction of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, an image that may offend, but may be just as likely to service humour to others.
To add to the randomness, I utilised a bricolage of styles, drawing inspiration from 90s anime, comic strip absurdity, kids drawing and amateur art. I did however stray from my criterion, using a variety of mediums including pen ink and marker though I do feel the veering was beneficial to my overall piece, servicing the other criterion of saturated colours, which non ink based mediums fail to provide.
My choice to only use free, online fonts or simply handwriting also relates to the punk movement through being anti consumerist, refusing to subscribe to use premium fonts. As the piece was so messy and cluttered, I decided to use clean, sans serif fonts such as Public Sans and Futura. The choice to feature the album and band name on the back was strategic as after all, the album is still a product that requires selling. I did however want it to feel more personal and as such, hand wrote the band and album name. FInally, to make the album art feel like an actual product, I added a serial number, barcode and copyright.
Overall, I'm very happy with the outcome of these works, as I feel they effectively represent the band's brand image as well as the punk movement in both aesthetic and creation.
CD
For my previous digipack, I made a very simple CD design which only contained the album and band name in a scribbly font. Though the simplicity adhered to the anti establishment mentality, I wanted to make a new CD design to follow the new direction of my digipack. As such, I looked again towards my key inspiration of Beatopia, who's CD featured a scribbly butterfly. This reminded me and possibly drew inspiration from Britney Spears' '...Baby One More Time' CD, which consisted of a hand drawn flower.
With these inspirations in mind, I created this rather simple design of a cherub and scribble. I wanted the CD design to be comparatively simplistic to my album art as to contrast to its cluttered and random nature. As the details on the CD would be seen bigger than that of the album artwork, I used thicker lines with more bold mediums such as oil pastels. To also add texture to further juxtapose the alb um artwork, I crumpled the paper before scanning, servicing the handmade look.
To make the CD appear as a more coherent product, I included the compact disc logo as well as utilising free clipart to make a faux record label logo. I then used the same serial number and copyright that featured on the album art.
Consolidating ideas
I consolidated my ideas on this template, which enabled me to not only view how all aspects of my CD artwork interplayed with one another, but also map out a potential spine and inside insert design.
For the inside insert, I featured a polaroid from my film. However, my reasoning and choice of polaroid differ from that of my 1st digipack draft. This time, I decided on using a photograph that featured a couple of Vice's band members working on making the film. The subject of them actually creating the work, as well as the obscuring of their faces through either objects or life, undermines any connotations of 'selling out' through identity focus.
For the spine, I wanted something sleek and simple and thus decided on only including the album and band name around the middle of the spine. The simplicity paired with an intentionally poor font choice serviced the CD being identifiable, an aspect imperative to the punk mindset, being non conformist.
Final CD Digipack
Utilising a free .psd mockup set, I was able to see a proper visualisation of what the CD would look like in real life. Overall, I am very pleased with this CD design, as i feel all the designs are perfectly balanced with colour, type and negative space. Throughout the entirety of the creative and tangible creating process, I adhered to the punk axioms of anti-establishment, anti-communist, non-conformity and DIY ethic, which by proxy, makes my album approachable to my target audience of young, likeminded punks.
Digipack: CD - First Draft
For the first draft of my digipack, I analysed the works of Raymond Pettibon and drew from their handmade, juvenile quality as inspiration. As Pettibon often depicts humans as subjects in his album covers, I decided to look through screencaps of my film to find potential references for the album cover. The first sections of my music video I thought to look to were the polaroid sections as they were already still images.
Though not square, I decided to use the landscape polaroid. This is due to the polaroid containing more than one subject as per Raymond Pettibon, but also due to it containing Vice's frontman and the mystery girl from the music video. This generates an aura of mystery surrounding who she is, causing an intrigue which encourages purchase.
Knowing I would be copying the image directly, I wanted to explore alternative types of composition. I brainstormed various ways of framing the image, from filling up the cover entirely to retaining the polaroid format. I looked towards 'The Money Store' (Death Grips, 2012) and 'Goo' again, to understand the importance of contrast and colour balance. I was fond of the vertical split between black and white in 'The Money Store' cover and sought to emulate it in the final cover.
Without doing a base sketch, I directly drew with a thick black marker on the paper. This way, I got more lose, flowing and honest linework. I adhered to using simple mediums such as a random black marker and computer paper as to display the impurities in quality and thus, present as more juvenile and intentionally bad. I then scanned the art to produce my album cover as scanners really capture the gritty textures of paper, adding to the 'DIY' aesthetic.
Final Product
Cover
Digipack
I decided to present my digipack through a prototype package. I downloaded a free .psd file and began laying out my work. This layout gave me additional option of adding the inner contents of the CD booklet, of which I input the polaroids that turn up in my music video, albeit for spit seconds, as to serve trans media convergence and give my audience a glimpse of aspects of the music video they may have wanted to appreciate more. I also got to work on the CD design, of which I also kept exceedingly, and perhaps deceivingly, simple considering the contents of my music video being that of a visual college, a juxtaposition I thought would be interesting.
A pro of this cover is that it fit the criterion of looking like a handmade, juvenile product. However, there is an equilibrium that must be met with irony, and I felt the marker lines looked a little too juvenile and the text placement was not optimal nor readable. Upon analysis of the other covers, I realised that though the linework was shaky and not precise, all colours were solid which was the defining factor in what separates ironic and un-ironic 'bad' artwork. As such, I thought to redo my digipack with this new knowledge, and combat these issues perhaps by using the image trace feature on Adobe Illustrator for clean lines.
Digipack Planning
After compiling my inspirations, I looked towards the intricacies of their designs to discern what aesthetic choices I would follow. The main album I used for design inspiration would be Goo (Sonic Youth, 1990) and Twin Fantasy (Car Seat Headrest, 2018). Both these album designs can be summarised in their simplicity, monochrome palette and handmade, authentic style.
Goo - Sonic Youth
Designed by punk artist Raymond Pettibon, 'Goo' pulls from his characteristic use of icons from popular culture. The illustration is an interpretation of a photograph of Maureen Hindley and David Smith, witnesses to the Moors Murders. This image paired with the text is intentionally provocative to those aware, however is niche enough to fly over the heads of many. There is a distinct crudeness to the both the illustration and typography, with messy, unrefined line work and unmapped type layouts, suggesting the image was created straight on the paper without prior planning. Pettibon made the image on computer paper with black ink, which may me a medium I utilise in the creation of my digipak.
Twin Fantasy - Car Seat Headrest
The album art work for 'Twin Fantasy' is sleek and simplistic, depicting two intertwining dogs. The illustration is actually a piece of concept artwork, intended to serve as a basis for a commission for the proper album artwork. However, the drawings simplicity was viewed as charming by the artist, and posited to the band to keep the drawing. Like 'Goo', it was created with ink on paper.
As such, I decided to look more into Raymond Pettibon's work with other artist's album covers.
Cracks In The Sidewalk - Various artists, 1980
Six Pack - Black Flag (1981)
Both are more refined than Pettibon's work on 'Goo', with cleaner and more detailed line work as well as featuring vector fonts. Looking into his other work gave me a wider breath of visual stimulation and more ideas as to how to go about making my digipack.