Now, as you may know from reading all of mu blog posts, you might know how much I love using EP by Mind Shrine as a inspiration for all of my graphics, its practically influenced everything I have done. So, as an homage to its dominance as an inspiration for this entire project, I felt like it was only right to redesign it.
To be honest with you, I don't really know where to start here. I guess Ill begin on my idea process. Now, I already have touched on why I chose to make a deluxe version, because I think the music on it is great and the album cover is also pretty cool and that's about it really, I guess it also ties into the poster I made for the hinting of there other album coming out, IS IT YOU? but that's about it.
For more conceptual ideas for this though, this piece has been inspired by my badges I have made in another blog post before, and the main idea I took from that was that I wanted to try and make the main idea that its a different colour. I also wanted to try and use Peter Saville as the main inspiration, but that didn't exactly go as planned.
So, unlike last time, I wanted to get different ideas and execute them, rather then focusing on one idea and improving said design for that idea, so I had two main designs. Both designs would have the band members on rather then the symbols, but they would be displayed differently.
As said before, these have the same concept but the ideas are executed differently. I prefer idea 2 over idea 1 because of how it makes it more apparent that this is a deluxe version of the EP, along with it being more visually interesting compared to a bunch of peoples faces.
So, what research did I use to create this piece? Well, I used Peter Blake for this once again. Especially the album art that he created for The Who, called "Face Dances". In this particular art, it shows a bunc
h of different illustrations from many different artists of The Who band members, including Peter Blake himself making hi own painting. I thought this was quite powerful, since it showed the artists full blast and really lets you connect with them, which is something I have talked about before.
Another Artist I have been influenced by for this little project is Peter Saville. I mainly took inspiration from his first posters that he did which were themed around construction for Factory Records. I really liked this idea, so for one of my variants I made it black and yellow, with black being the background, along with adding yellow construction lines in the background swell to really drill in that Peter Saville feeling. Also, he will be brought back up into this, so do not worry.
As usual, I don't have any work in progress shots (I'm so sorry I did these just before I got the feedback to include them) but it went quite smooth. I used the gradient tool mainly for this piece, but I also used a to of the poly lasso tool along with the move tool and the magic wand. Wow I feel like this one is a whole lot shorter then the last one, but I guess there isn't really much to talk about for the process, so lets get into the final products.
These are it! now, you can see they are similar but we can see the different ideas I have been shown. We can also see the inspiration from Peter Saville in V2, along with Peter Blakes usage of people in the album cover is also practiced here. Like the posters, I shall be referring to each one as 1 (the red and white one), 2 (the black and yellow one) and 3 (the green and white one). if I don't mention any numbers during my reflection that means I am referring to all of them.
So, what do I think of the work I have produced here? For 1 and 3 I think they came out really good. The colours are simple and stick true to the original design with a little bit of a remix, with one having a more extreme but faithful homage to the original (3) compared to the other (1). 2 though? I don't like it very much. Although I do think the idea of having it black nd yellow is really cool, I simply just don't think I have been able to make it work, I also don't think it suits the overall feeling for the EP at all with darker colours.
Was it successful? I think I have already wen a little in depth with this in the first one, but I think they are all successful in the end, its just the idea for 2 isn't exactly as thought out compared to 1 and 3, with it really not matching the brand of Mind Shrine, although it does look quite nice.
What would I do differently if I could? I think for 2 I would choose a different colour of black. perhaps more of a dark grey, whilst the gradients used on the people and other smaller graphics would still be black and yellow. For 2 I would also just use their heads only, rather then using the bust for some, neck and up amongst others for the sake of consistency. for 1 I would probably add the same little graphics, the telephone and the man, to the right of the top head, and to the left to the bottom head. I think this would fill out the cover since when I look at it now its a bit empty. I don't think I wouldn't have done anything differently for 3, I think to a degree it is perfect. maybe I would recreate the line surrounding the people and the Mind Shrine logo using the pen tool so I don't have to deal with the thicker boarders of some lines, and the thinner of others.
How could I develop this further? Well, I think any of these could easily be on tote backs, or hoodies or just general merchandise really. Hats, Pencil cases the lot. I could also probably make tour posters that are based off either one of these final products, or even make this into a flag people could buy! since flags are popular with people around 16 and up for the same reasons posters are popular, but flags are more durable since they are made from fabric rather then paper.
Would I revisit this in the future? I would like to think so. Making album covers is quite fun, since you have to take into consideration the target demographic, the genre and the feel of the music whilst providing the right information like the name of the band, the name of the album and still making it visually interesting enough to be caught at the glimpse of an eye,
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