Here’s my opinion about cover art, which is based on my personal thoughts on the subject as well as my ambitions as a designer for music. I have to admit that these thoughts aren’t entirely my own. There are musicians (mostly Steven Wilson) who have influenced my way of thinking over the past few years, so you could say that I adopted their beliefs. They shook me and made me think, they made me shape my opinion and it became something I firmly stand for. It even formed my ambitions as a designer for music.
Back to cover art. I think that everything I’ll say can be summed up in this: The design is part of the piece. Music and its artwork should form a whole. Music is one part of the presentation and the other part is the artwork, they’re not separate things. If you like someone’s music, usually you like their cover designs as well. Right? Unfortunately that isn’t always the case.
I see a lot of albums with totally shitty or unfitting designs, which really makes me wonder about why people would do that. I mean; Why would you put a lot of effort into music, spent an extreme amount of time perfecting it and making it great and then put it into a piece of crap sleeve with an unworthy design?
I think that’s such a disappointment. Not just for yourself and your music, but for your fans as well. It’s like artists don’t care about how their work is represented visually, while in fact that’s very important. Like I said before: music and its artwork form a single piece. Slacking on the design part ruins the brilliance of the music and the album. Ok so that might be a little overdramatic; because there obviously are a lot great album designs as well. Yet there are still artists who neglect that vital design part, which compelled me to write this post.
We’re visually orientated
The cover art of an album is an incentive to buy it (among other reasons of course). Especially these days with the internet and the easy access people have to simply download music. Unless you give them something visually awesome, they’re just going to download it. Why else would they buy a physical copy? They have no reason, unless you give them something they really want to own in a tangible form.
Funny thing is that sometimes it's the other way around. Obviously this is just a matter of taste; but sometimes the cover art is brilliant, while the recording sucks. Or, the cover is awesome but totally unfitting to the music. I refrained from adding example covers to this post because it’s such a personal thing and I didn’t find it relevant enough.
My own ambitions as a designer
Being a designer myself, I strive to create artworks that are unified with their music. (No; I'm not just saying that to make myself look good, I really do give a shit.) My most important goal in design for music is to ensure that the image is a visual representation of the music. That the design, atmosphere, concept and such things match and have the right look. As you might have guessed by now; It should not only be beautiful but fitting as well. Coming back to what I said at the start of this post: The design is part of the piece.
Feel free to let me know your thoughts on the matter, head over here if you want to. Or contact me by other means.
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