Album art research | Album art project

mood-board

This is a mood-board of research, a collage of different sorts of album covers, looking at different types, whether it be abstract background, or the person manipulated in different ways.

From what I can see in a lot of these albums, a lot of them are extremely creative with abstract and aesthetic looks. For example, both the Logic "Homicide" album cover in the top left and the bottom right album cover have the same feel, where once side of the main subject is being torn away and transformed into something else, with Logic, that being a devil or monster like figure on the right side of his head almost bursting out. then with the bottom right album cover. The face is halved with one side being you can clearly see the face of the subject, however, with the right side, you can see a moon like object for the eye, and swirl shape art coming from the face and smoothly blending into the background, which made a cool depth effect compared to the other side. The Michael Jackson cover art in the bottom right is very cool as well, with what seems to be a Saturn like ring around his head, and below are lights overtaking the body of the subject which gives it a cool aesthetic look and is very eye-catching for the audience, and for the time it came out would look very weird and funky.

existing album art

I then looked into other Nico Collins album art covers, and this is what I found.

"Honest" -

The "Honest" album cover is text in quotation marks with a lie detector background, telling the viewer it's going to be a song about honesty and possibly someone or something not being honest, however, I know from listening to the song myself, the person related to that song is always honest and doesn't like.

"Rooftop Sessions" -

The album "Rooftop Sessions" is just text with a image in the background of a rooftop, on a tall building, which is where the music is reordered and shown, which makes the album cover pretty simple, but I like the text on the light background, normally, this would look bad and you would possibly not be able to read it, however, you can read it very clearly and easily.

"Alone" -

The album cover for "Alone" is a picture of Nico Collins with text, but the cool thing in this one is the shadow to the right of him, showing that it's the only thing that is by his side and that there is no one else.

album art brief

Here I have highlighted the key points to the brief to focus on these areas.

image making research

These tutorials gave me an idea of how different techniques could be incorporated into my design. Below are some screenshots of me using some of the techniques in some example artwork.

Creating the environment

I got an image of a city from google & used it as the background, I added clouds using the plug-in from photoshop & created the clouds shown, I used hue & saturation to colour them.

Background

I created the purple background behind the city image because it allowed me to find an area for the foreground images & material. I wanted to create a moody like setting.

Trees

I wanted to use palm trees in my image so I found some of google & decided to make an arch shape from them, almost like a smiley face.

Road

I added a road & cut out the other background material using the rectangle select tool. I then moved it into place.

Nico Collins

I imported an image of Nico Collins from google & used subject to cut him out from the background. I them copied the layer & with distort tools I put the image onto the road material then used the opacity tool & used blend if to merge it into the ground.

Text

I then added text, top left being "NC" for Nico Collins & the Hannah Montana text which was been misspelled.

Final test

I changed the text, both the misspelled "Montana" & I changed the effect type on the text to allow more transparency. I like this test & may use something similar in my final design, if I do choose this style that is.

animation research

Given these videos, I now understand how to create some form of animation for my album art in adobe after effects. Below are some examples of animation I learned.

Importing the PSD file into after effects

I quickly learned how to import my album art concept PSD file into after to allow for better animation & more efficient workflow.

How the project looked

This is the PSD file when imported into after effects showing all of my photoshop layers.

Back to projects page

creative media l3 project by cj

GO HOME

mood-board

This is a mood-board of research, a collage of different sorts of album covers, looking at different types, whether it be abstract background, or the person manipulated in different ways.

existing album art

I then looked into other Nico Collins album art covers, and this is what I found.

album art brief

Here I have highlighted the key points to the brief to focus on these areas.

image making research

These tutorials gave me an idea of how different techniques could be incorporated into my design. Below are some screenshots of me using some of the techniques in some example artwork.

animation research

Given these videos, I now understand how to create some form of animation for my album art in adobe after effects. Below are some examples of animation I learned.

Album art ideas & concepts

mood-board

​This is a mood-board of research, a collage of different sorts of album covers, looking at different types, whether it be abstract background, or the person manipulated in different ways.

existing album art

I then looked into other Nico Collins album art covers, and this is what I found.

album art brief

Here I have highlighted the key points to the brief to focus on these areas.

image making research

These tutorials gave me an idea of how different techniques could be incorporated into my design. Below are some screenshots of me using some of the techniques in some example artwork.

animation research

Given these videos, I now understand how to create some form of animation for my album art in adobe after effects. Below are some examples of animation I learned.

Album art ideas & concepts

This is a mood-board of research, a collage of different sorts of album covers, looking at different types, whether it be abstract background, or the person manipulated in different ways.