In this week’s project I expanded from 2d and have to create 3 3d album covers. 1 full album cover for a 12 inch vinyl AND 2 single covers for 7 inch vinyls.

albums for inspiration

To start my planning of what to make, I made a small mind map with ideas that come to my mind first.

for more inspiration, I looked at some more books that could inspire what to build or a general set.

Andy Goldsworthy – wood

In this book, it shows the work Goldsworthy creates from nature. everything that is attached together or placed is only connected using natural items like thorns or grass. the book focuses mainly on nature around trees like roots, leaves, seeds and earth. I like the use of natural form so I for one of my covers I can create something using wood.

Nash – burning man art in the dessert

in this book, various groups collaborate together to create art in the dessert. the pieces look wild and inventive. what I love about this work is that it’s out in the open dessert where it looks desolate and out of place. this helps me think about where I might place my work – in open spaces outside where it looks out of place.

after my research I decided to draw some thumbnail sketches. I wanted to use the cross from my bands logo for at least one of my album covers so I designed a few thumbnails with it.

Originally, I wanted to use the top left design, bottom right and middle right thumbnails to make one album cover and two singles. however, the middle one didn’t feel achievable in my time limit so I decided to draw some more thumbnails.

following my original album cover from 2d, I based the singles on some of the names from the back cover. I decided to go with the bottom left “emergence” design and the top left “spilt coca-cola” design. for my actual album cover, I used the cross thumbnail from my first page of designs.

before I did any making, I made some sketches of how I would set up the pictures. the one on the left was my idea of how I would make mayday but I scrapped it in the end. for the right, it shows a Birdseye view of what the set would look like and how I would make it.

Photoshoot

The photoshoot didn’t go as I planned because it was too windy so the fire wouldn’t spread across the rest of the wood. I decided to try and work with what I had.

For the first album cover which was the 12 inch one. I tried to duplicate the fire to make it feel more chaotic. I then tried changing the colour of the entire image to give that burning feeling. I duplicated the cross and made the top one colour burn to make the colours burst out some more. I then overlayed some brushes to make it feel slightly messier. afterwards, I started playing around with the type, moving it into different positions, changing the fonts and in the end I settled with it sat in the middle of the cross with a difference effect on top.

I then created the back cover using a close up image of the cross, it’s much brighter and I used difference for some of the flames to make it pop a bit more.

I then moved onto my two 7 inch vinyls. I chose the songs spilt Coca Cola and emergence. I started developing emergence first.

I started by layering the fire onto the plane that I used from my previous album cover. I then added noise to the image and duplicated the plane to look like a ghost next to it. I added the text and decided to have it slightly lower than the plane and added a noise filter on top as well as lighter colour mode.

for the back image I took the album cover, inverted it and duplicated it to make an abstract look to it.

for the final 7 inch vinyl, spilt coca-cola, I took the images of the burning coca-cola and layered the fire on top again while blurring a duplicated can on top to make it look like it was burning away. I made the can more vibrant than the background to make it stand out. I added the cross to the front of the can instead of the full pointless ligatures logo so it’s still obvious who it’s by. I then added the title of the song with a difference effect on top of it.

for the back cover I used a greyed out version of one of my images and put the logo as well as the rest of the copyright, scan tag and record label at the bottom. I then put a halftone on top of the image to try and make it look like a memory.

after feedback

After receiving feedback, I found that my album covers were too digital rather than hand made in 3d. so, to improve this I decided to reduce how much digital things I used on the album covers like filters.

I tried to keep the cross the most visible part of the cover and moved the text to the bottom, then also making the fire more visible and chaotic.

I went back to it again and decided to reduce the amount of red in the image and I felt it pulled it together a lot more than before.

For the emergence cover I took one of the layered images off and Made it look less digital, this was my favourite one that I redid because it looked much more natural. I also changed the text so it didn’t have a filter.

I also redid the two back covers of the 7 inch vinyls because they looked too spacious and missing some things. I added the tracks and it filled it up quite well.

overall, I liked the way it looks after adding some more things to the back covers, it made them feel more complete.