OUGD406 // Secret 7 Initial Sketches

After circling and selecting my favourite and the most appropriate ideas from the mind maps previously created, i created initial sketches visualising possible outcomes. Whilst I was in this process, I also documented other quirky ideas that came through the development process, introducing a comedic undertone popular within the art-music movement. I wanted to explore a ambiguous style rather than overly obvious, however not unrelentingly random.

As I want to look to create as many album covers as possible, I haven't selected one single track to take further. I plan to experiment with a range of album covers, whittling down to the best ideas. 

All sketches have underlying meanings relating to the song connotations or lyrics. 

Bottom left is a simple illustration of a dream my flatmate had. They jumped out of bed into a see of darkness to witness a knife coming towards them. I feel the idea of conveying an actual dream for the track 'Dream 3' by Matt Ritcher is a clever approach, allowing me to investigate a range of ambiguous outcomes.

As perceptions and 21st century stereotypes of Art School are quite negative, I wanted to play on the humorous qualities created by art school stereotypes. Often "Art" is considered pretentious, hence why I opted for "Shut up you tosser". In addition, the scrunched up ball of paper with artwork on would be photographed in crisp detail, highlighting the real truth of art school, producing work you will inevitably hate. In addition, I wanted to explore Etta James's femininity and sexuality in a contrasting way to other female stars, possibly by just capturing her beauty mark encased in negative space. Other idea's were a continuous line drawing of Etta posed on a Piano, peers raised the point this would also be effective as a abstract oil painting, further highlighting the fluid tonal qualities of the song 'At Last'.

As Max Richer's track is intended for sleep and the creation of dreams, I wanted to look at re-creating funny/random dreams experienced by myself and peers relating to this concept.

Illustration idea for 'Dream 3' with a dream that happened to one of flat mates. In the dream Jesus was reincarnated into a fish and went into a takeaway, pleading for help. The takeaway man refused to help and gave a snide response. This is my take on that scene.

Initial outcomes //

After creating my initial ideas generations for each song, I found a humorous similarity between a few of the artists names. With this in mind, I chose to create a series of prep album covers experimenting with flat vector styles, a technique I am still getting use to. I opted to go straight to Illustrator for these designs, simply to get my technicality up on creative cloud whilst pondering other conceptual idea's.

John Lennon aka John Lemon 

Jack Garrett aka Jack Carrot

Matt Richer aka Matt Rich-er

Etta James aka Feta James

If this concept is praised in a future critique I plan to do 'The Jam' pot with marmalade/ strawberry jam oozing down it, continuing the series. Unfortunately I can't think of punny and funny names for Tame Impala and Chverches and feel the series will not be strong enough without them.