There is nothing worse than a designer (or client for that matter) that sees something and instantly thinks, “that’s cool, we should just use that as is.” There is also nothing worse than a designer (or client for that matter) that sees something and instantly thinks, “That’s cool, we should make it utterly rubbish with a bunch of garbage-ass additions.” Anyone who tells you that design isn’t a science is lying. Anyone who tells you that design is only science is lying. When it comes to design there are no easy answers, but with intelligent-decision making you can at least have something that, while not groundbreaking, also won’t be garbage. The point is, let your gut create it, let your intelligence hone it. While we haven’t done to much compare and contrast it’s important to see the difference firsthand.
Hallucinogen
Kelela
Released: 2015
The moment I saw this image I was struck. As we tried to point out with Fall Out Boy a few issues ago (go to bg.buddyguy.com to see the aritcle), sometimes an image alone can do so much more than image and text. That is especially true when composition and lighting are done so imaculately. I’m in awe of the artists who were in charge of this project, but as we like to say, “let’s get to it already.” Where to begin? Ah, yes, symmetry. There is a symmetry in the asymmetry in a terrifyingly brilliant way. Normally we wouldn’t include it here but check it out.
Now instead of her hair the backlight, highlights an area that fills where her hair would beby being brighter, it’s an negative fill of sorts, contrasting the other side of hair, all of which frames her face. Yes I know hair typically does that but that’s not always the case with asymmetrical cuts. The frame of the photo is filled with such perfection that the idea of adding her name or the name of the album would be tragic. A tragic mistake that is; as even the most subtle amount of text treatment would distract from the focus and unbalance the image all together.
Obviously if text was necessary there are measures that could have been or could even still be taken to add them, but if you believe that’s necessary, ask yourself why? This is only the front cover, there’s plenty of other places you can slap as much text as your heart desires. Sometimes you just have to let the beauty of something burn away your soul and then ask for more.
Unbreakable
Janet Jackson
Released: 2015
Whelp, what’s to say? You have one of the biggest names in music and you decide you need to overwork it, cool. Nope. At first look I was impressed, but admittedly I didn’t look very hard, and it was a smallish image. Once I saw it larger the questionable decisions started to show themselves. There is a specific adjustment you can make in photoshop to make a photo more “intense”, I call it the a@#hole adjustment. Used intelligently it can add a very nice quality to a photo; however, much like two youtube commenters baring down on each other, some editors don’t know when to stop. There are reasons to stylize a photo, such as trying to cover up a mistake or going for a era style impression. As a way of making it look cool, it is a poor decision and a lazy means of trying to be better than they are. I wouldn’t be so put off by it if the lighting in the image wasn’t done so well. The addition of the a-hole adjustment it makes the entire image feel photoshopped, and that’s the exact opposite of what you want do as a editor or designer (unless you do then good on you).
ME
Empress Of
Released: 2015
What can be said about this album that isn’t completely apparent? Not much. While we don’t like to bang the same drum over and over again it seems that we must. I get that simple can be good and that less is more, but there’s a way of doing that without such a miserable failure. It’s hard to believe that any designer would produce something like this even at the behest of an
artist or label. I would likely leave a job before putting allowing this to be released. There are millions of artists in the world and a million of them are more capable than I am, and avaiable to work. It’s hard not to get hung up on that. Albums don’t have to be flashy or crazy artistic, but they do need to have intelligent descision making. Again we’re presented with a perfectly good photo, it’s not amazing but it’s definitely good. So why, oh why choose some basic and boring type to accompany it. If you’re going to choose a shit font choose not to put it on there at all. I know, I know, “But Porter, Empress Of is outlined, they tried there.” Nope, nope, nope. Yes, but nope. I get it, there’s personal reasons and perhaps even business reasons for why art gets made, but the amount of effort it takes to do something, anything more than what they’ve done here would take at most 4 hours. The second example took me 15 mintues trying to find the type I wanted. See now how nice lines are created that weren’t there before, more emphasis is put on the artist but not so much that the title and name are destroyed? 15 minutes. Just saying.
DIRTY SPRITE 2
Future
Released: 2015
The question anyone who isn’t a designer asks (and some who are) is, “Does it matter?” The honest answer is yes and no, but ultimately no. Some designers at some time or another in their career has purposely made something terrible as well as something good only to have the client choose the terrible one. And that’s the trick, trying to figure
out exactly what your client likes and commercializing it.
For the most part this album conveys that idea very well. It’s a very cool picture. Very cool, but that’s about it, that is the extent of composition here. The name and title of the album are presented in a way that’s unnecssary, unless they’re going for a subtle nod that Future himself is a dirty sprite, in which case, it’s a lazy attempt at it. It looks more like Holi (the festival of color) than dirty anything. I’m not entirely sure
why they’re trying to make everything subtle. In doing so the face in the ink drop could easily be overlooked, though that’s partly due to the hypnotic nature of the ink drop; it has so many curls twists and turns that it’s nearly imposible to see anything in there.
Typically the ink drop is overlayed on the face or the balance of imposed images shouldn’t be so rubbishy. If it’s about the ink drop, let it be about the ink drop.
That’s the thing though, isn’t it? There’s so much going on here that was intentional but not necessarily intelligent. It’s definitely possible the client liked the look and the designer decided that instead of making waves to just go with it (Lord knows I’ve done it, but most of what I have created isn’t done so on a world wide scale). At some point it’s important to do a test print and make the client look at it long and hard, maybe take it home and sleep on it. While it’s their name on the packaging, it’s yours too. This isn’t bad album art, it isn’t well executed either.
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