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[mediadesignfall2015]

Serious Priya

[mediadesignfall2015]

Three well designed music artworks

1. Cannonball Adderley’s Somethin’ Else

The album’s artwork is composed of a black back-drop that creates color contrast with white, green and blue fonts. The organized alignement of the text on the right side of the artwork streamlines the viewer’s search for information about the album. The size difference fonts establishes a hierarchy between the different album’s informations: title, artists, label, info about Miles Davis’ participation. To me the concept here is to create the artwork of a jazz album that stands out of from the contemporary production. Compared to the vast majority of artworks that show a picture of the musician playing his instrument, the straightforwardness of Somethin’ Else’s artwork is symbolic of its high standard.

2. Real Estate’s Atlas

The artwork is divided between the text area and the image area. What’s interesting here is the original application of primary colors contrast (blue, red, and beige that stands for yellow). The division of the photo in a mosaic shaped pattern is also original. The artwork of Atlas is simple but effective.

3. Atmosphere’s Sad Clown Bad Summer

The hip hop album artwork’s composition is very effective in its use of various colors and fonts. The placement of colors at specific hot spots in both the text and the image creates a combination of Z shaped patterns: the blue “Sad Clown” matches the left hand corner of the blanket and the centered woman’s dress ; the clown’s red painted face matches the woman’s red shoe as well as the red motifs’ on her neighbor’s dress ; the white “Bad Summer” is in accordance with the pianist’s instrument and shirt and with the women’s dresses in the foreground. The overall atmosphere of the artwork is based on the harmonious combination of analogous colors yellow and green. The use of different fonts - alternating between Serif and Sans serif - also adds to the visual flow. To me, the artwork’s designer has succeeded in creating a particular mood, an atmosphere that fits the name of the artist.