Album Cover Finished

Here is our finished artwork for Tear Down The Flagship's self-titled debut album:

Reflections on the Final Draft of the Album Art

We finished the Album art today. It's looking cracking :)
It took us a long time to change the whole look but keep the same brand image, but we did this through the photography and front cover being of the sea.  I'm really happy with the outcome and feel it was a really good effort :)

Reflections on first draft of the Album Artwork

We designed our first idea for album art today, sticking with the themes of the myspace.
However Ms B says that she doesn't like how it seems to be all the same sort of artwork as on the myspace.
We'll have to have another look at our designs and see what we can do to change it, but still keep our brand image.

Project Artwork Idea

For all images if you want to look at them in more detail, click on the picture.

Here are some artwork ideas for our Project band. We all agreed that seeing as this genre of music seems to inspire a whole crazy load of nautical based band names, if we're meant to stick to stereotypes we should follow suit. One that I suggested is Tear Down The Flagship, that the others quite like, so we'll have to see if it sticks!

The pictures show my artwork design for the logo and how I made it. The first picture shows how I made the band title itself.

1. Started with plain text, three different fonts for each section of the title; "Tear Down" "The" "Flagship". These were plain black.
2. Grouped the text together so it was all one image. Added a scratch filter to the text to make it look worn out (typical hardcore band style thing to do).
3. Created a drop shadow to the bottom right of the image and changed the font to a turquoise like colour that I thought quite sea-like.
4. Combined the text and shadow for the final Band Font layout.

Next I created the images to go with the logo. I decided on an anchor and a squid/kraken. To make these I found black and white pencil drawings of both online. Next I added a full contrast and low brightness setting to each making it simply a black and white outline image, getting rid of all shading. I then individually coloured each section adding in shades and zooming in to get individual frames to make sure the colour was full and vibrant. However with the style of music in hand I went for a more low saturation style colour scheme. The red is meant to be a contrast to the logos colour. I then added the same Drop Shadow to each picture as on the logo.

After this I combined the two objects together. I cut the anchor in half and stuck one half in a layer above the logo, and one below. This allowed me to put the anchor through the "A" to make an individual and outstanding Logo.

I think the logo works quite well and fits the genre of music we are aiming to market with our project.

Previous Album Artwork Designs

I thought after seeing Simon's blog post on Album Art I'd look in my vault of treasures at some of the artwork I've done in the past for my own bands/projects.

The first bit of artwork to talk about is my Acoustic Solo Project Discography made up of loads of random singles and EPs all with individual covers. They all have quite calming covers are are pretty simple, usually with lots of smooth patterns and just a title and small picture.

This then leads onto my album design, where I went for a bit more of an indie feel, but still sticking to the warm, glowing, colour scheme. The whole album art is based around an orange colour scheme and some pictures I took at Hyde Park. They are all of nature and scenery as it is quite natural music, trying to avoid digital and electric instruments. This is an example of making artwork that brands the artist and suits the mood of the genre. Also with the Projects name being "Eternal Sunshine" I thought the orange and yellow scheme appropriate along with the solar flare on each page of the in-sleeve.

Next is my old band I Breathe Fire, a Pop Punk/Screamo band. The image is a lot sharper and there are not so many smooth edges. We decided to stick with the bands name as the Artwork theme seeing as it was a self titled EP. The album art is all based around parchment and fire, and the effect round the edges makes it look like the fire is burning through the cover. We decided to use the same pattern and back drop for the in-sleeve using a simple plain font not to over complicate the graphics.



The last bit of Artwork is for my most recent band "Who Watches The Watchmen" (named after a quote from the 1980s Graphic Novel and recent Film). We didn't want to be associated too much with the original branded product but stuck to the red and yellow colour scheme of the comic book. Also the exploding clock was our own creation of the Doomsday Clock that appears throughout "Watchmen". The background is a simple red and white gradient with a scratch filter on it to make it look worn away. The Band name is organised in an odd pattern to make it memorable and stand out. There is also a slight shadow round the edges of the clock and the band logo to make them stand out from the layers below.

Just thought this could be a nice inspiration post on the sort of Artwork I like to create and later when we show our favourite Album Art, I can go back and compare how I've been inspired myself.