#album artwork
Alvie Closet is an up and coming singer/songwriter from costal Victoria. Designing the cover for her first EP was an enjoyable process involving a lot of work with shapes and colours. We wanted to incorporate a costal theme without making it the main focus and we found that heavily editing one of our own travel snaps was an effective way of doing this. To check out Alvie Closets tunes, look her up on Facebook or head to her Band Camp page!
Check out our Behance profile for the full project!
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“朴” Album Cover Design.
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Client: Kenyon.
Date: 5. 2017.
Art Direction : Jun-Yao Yu
Visual Design : Jun-Yao Yu
Illustration : Jun-Yao Yu
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NINE INCH NAILS - THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
GRAPHIC DESIGN - SINGLE COVER ART
TRACK 12: REPTILE
I like the way all of these translated into single covers, but I’m definitely drawn to the one up top with the slug following the worm. It feels like there is a narrative being played out, as if the slug drawn to the worm after being put under some sort of spell. The fact that only the tail end of the worm is exposed after I cropped the image, curling upwards as if it is luring the slug down a dark path is very apt for the song ‘Reptile’
The protagonist returns to his old ways indulging in the worst parts of himself but the only thing he knows to be true. What’s tragic is he will realise that seeking escape in these destructive patterns has made him weary and aware of just how alone he is. The woman to which he has turned is cold and compassionless. She cares as little for him as she did the one before him or will for the one after him.
Devils speak of the way in which she’ll manifest
Angels bleed from the tainted touch of my caress
Need to contaminate to alleviate this loneliness
I now know the depths I reach are limitless
Oh my beautiful liar
Oh my precious whore
My disease my infection
I am so impure oh
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NINE INCH NAILS - THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL
GRAPHIC DESIGN - SINGLE ARTWORK
TRACK 11: ERASER
I had played around with a few ideas for logo and title placement after selecting the image I was happiest with, and I settled on the one up top.
I like the placement of the logo and how there is a thick wire underneath it that looks as if it is holding it up. I also like how the ‘Eraser’ title is subtly in the centre of the image, and looks as if it is hand written on the photoset.
I did indeed hand write the title for this one, as I thought it was appropriate given the title of the song. I flirted with the idea of doing an actual erased version, however when I used a graphite pencil to fill in a page and erase letters and words into it, the lines just weren’t thin enough and it looked sloppy.
The compensate, instead of ‘erasing’ the word eraser, I simply drew a line through it making it look as if it had been crossed out.
I’m happy with the way this cover turned out, I think it suits the song and is rich with meaning.
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‘THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL’ - NINE INCH NAILS
SINGLE ARTWORK : FINAL DRAFT
TRACK 10: A WARM PLACE
These are my final drafts for ‘A Warm Place’ by Nine Inch Nails.
I decided to also do an Irish version, as a tribute to the Joyce Family and those that were wrongfully accused of their deaths.
I am also going to include the song ‘A Warm Place’, which you can listen to below. I didn’t bother doing so with any of the other tracks because ‘The Downward Spiral’ is a pretty noisey, abrasive record and this is a project for school after all.
However this is probably one of the most beautiful, peaceful songs I’ve ever heard. I would recommend it to anyone.
I also recently only realised for the first time that it borrows quite a bit from the David Bowie deep cut called “Crystal Japan” which Bowie had originally written for a gin commercial for a Japanese company.
Reznor had written ‘A Warm Place’ himself without realising where the melody came from, but having a feeling it was not actually his. It’s a funny story you can read about here.
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‘THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL’ - NINE INCH NAILS
SINGLE ARTWORK : IDEAS DEVELOPMENT
TRACK 10: A WARM PLACE
I had a very hard time figuring out what worked best for this cover. I had taken many arguably “better” photos, or at least ones that would make more sense as a cover. But this one had the most significance to me in light of the subject matter.
I had taken this photo lying on the floor within the walls of what remained of the Maamtrasna home of John Joyce and his family. I wanted to lie down on the ground and get a sense of what they must have felt in their final moments. Everything suddenly became very real to me and I was very overwhelmed with emotion.
Even now I feel a sense of loss looking at this image, but visiting just as spring was setting in gave me a sense of hope as I look at all of the life sprouting from the ground. Sometimes it can be easy to forget about hope, but it’s always there.
My issue was not regarding the picture itself. I knew as soon as I took the photo that this would be the one. My fear was obscuring it with the logo and text. I am studying graphic design at the end of the day, and not photography, so I had to find a way around this problem. I knew I wanted to align it on the left hand side if not the middle ( I had already used the right hand side for “I Do Not Want This” and didn’t feel like repeating myself )
After moving the logo and text around for WAY too long, it finally occurred to me to lower the opacity of the logo and text so as to make it slightly transparent. I was then able to find a good middle ground between making the logo and title legible, but also keeping the integrity of the image.
I’m happy with my decision to use this image, and it probably stands as the thing I am most proud of and emotionally connected to throughout this project.
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‘THE DOWNWARD SPIRAL’ - NINE INCH NAILS
FOUND OBJECTS: FINAL DRAFT
TRACK 7: THE BECOMING
These are my two final drafts for ‘The Becoming’.
I wanted to do a “clean” and “dirty” version, as it brought me back to buying CD’s as a kid. The Parental Advisory sticker was something of a badge of honour back in the 90′s.
At this point in the album our protagonist has successfully overthrown God and regained his control and identity, only to find all meaning lost as there is now nothing to believe in:
“all pain disappears it’s the nature of my circuitry,
drowns out all i hear there’s no escape from this my new consciousness,
the me that you know used to have feelings,
but the blood has stopped pumping and he’s left to decay,
the me that you know is made up of wires,
and even when i’m right with you i’m so far away.”
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new album cover art I created for a song I recently finished. The photo I used was taken by my mother, on our trip to Hawaii in 1987.
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