For better or for worse professionals excel at picking apart, decoding, and disseminating design and the world around them. Their minds are constantly working not on gaining clients or engaging in social media, but perfecting their craft. Unfortunately, because art can be subjective and bound by any number of requirements/requests there is no way to set a baseline for what it costs. Much like construction, or any profession really, you more often get what you pay for. When you consider such sites as Fiver or its ilk, tread carefully, especially with the induction of A.I. the world of art and artists can be a swamp of despair.
THE BEATLES AND AC/DC (TEXT ONLY ALBUMS) - Art is a funny thing. It’s different things to different people. While not everything in the world is art, there is so much more art than you may consider. A cog in a watch for instance. An element in a much larger mechanism, by itself is art as much as the art itself. Considering that is it possible for that cog to stand on its own? Can it be as strong or as impactful as an album that has a photo or a rendered image? The Beatles White Album and AC/DC’s Back In Black attempt to address that very question.
If you’re unfamiliar with the VW Beatle ad of 1959 “Think Small” was by all accounts one of the biggest and most daring campaigns of the time. It featured the slogan and a typical amount of copy talking about the car, however that type was at the very bottom of the ad taking up what was virtually 1/6 of the page. The rest of the page was a photo of the car, well that’s to say a large photo of the car far off in the background. Thumb-sized as it were. The White Album goes a step further and nails it. It is a designers dream (and eventually likely the record companies too) Can you ever forget what this looks like? Would you ever be able to look at your record collection and not pick it out? As crazy as it sounds good design is sometimes lack of it, but that kind of decision making takes good judgement and trust, sadly two things that are sorely missing from to many projects.
As the saying goes there’s more than one way to something something, okay maybe I’m not great with idioms, but you can’t be authoritative in every aspect of life. Anyway Back in Black while similar is also quite different. Funny thing about album design is that early on they weren’t created with the internet in mind (go figure) they were designed for the record store. I’m sure most of you have a memory of flipping through the albums or the racks for CD’s. Do you however remember how much of the album you would usually see? Typically the bottom half of the album was nearly if not completely obscured. So one of the best bets to get your shit noticed was to put either the title of the album or bands name at the very top. Smart design. It’s a trend that endures, most web sites will put the most important information in a very specific place so that anyone veiwing it on a smaller screen will be engaged from the moment they arrive. That’s also why when you veiw it on a larger screen there are large gaps left and right of the content. But beyond the “Hey they put it in the right place” gold star they also didn’t over power the black with heavy whites. Yes AC/DC is in white but being an outline rather than a fill keeps it light enough to show up but not be a eye sore. Similarly the albums title is in a warm gray that looks damn good on the black cover taking no attention away from the cover or band name. Fantastic examples of text only album covers.
LONDON CALLING - Every artist at one time or another has been asked to copy the work of someone else, and typically as an artists who likes having regular work, you’ve probably agreed, good for you keeping your job and also, shame on you.
You probably notice that there are 2 albums that look very similar, to similar really. I found the Clash first and Elvis’ album
second, with the Clash's album described as an homage, but this is about as close to a replication as you can come. The arm, stems, and strokes of the copy are all the same. Identical. Sickening. I’ve seen plenty of replications and true omages, but never so with 2 well known artists. The color is barely a variant.
It does pose some interesting questions. Is it okay to directly reference someones work? If you want to pay tribute to someone, especially someone who has so many different ways to tribute, maybe copying artwork nearly to exact specifications isn’t the way. It was stated that the tribute was "Because Elvis broke the rules of Rock and Roll" which is debatable, and copying the artwork, isn't a nod to Elvis, covering one of his songs would be, stealing another artists work, no matter if you think it was so simple a child could do it isn't.
Either way, I don’t hate the design, very few tweaks can or should be made (someting you think they would have done while ripping it off) Why off set “The Clash”? When you have this very nice frame work going with the title of the album why skew it with that? I’m curious why not drop it down to align to the grid? It takes a great deal of skill to create a design that both follows and does not follow a grid, this is on the lesser successful side of the spectrum.
The best thing London Calling designer could have done was to either decide to leave the text off completely or to keep the photo in the forefront by using the same contrast in the type as they do in the photo because let’s be honest, this is right up with with Hendrix burning his guitar is it not? It is.
STAR TIME - Okay, okay, yes this is super similar to the Gary Clark Jr. album, sue me. (Please don’t) Star Time actually (and unintentionally) demonstrates my earlier point about either using the grid or not using it unless it makes sense. This album art is so good and such a reflection of the music Brown produced.
I can only describe the cover as being “alive”. Looking at it you can see his live show, Brown stomping his feet, shaking the entire stage, causing things to bounce and rattle. This is the essence of what art should be, capturing “something”. The artist went one step further and created a light halftone pattern with circles that emminates from the microphone. Bringing attention from his name, the title of the album right to the image.
If you notice much like our Blondie cover, elements point to Brown. The yellow box holding his name is shifted in such a way that leads your eyes like lines to his image. The black box with the title off set the yellow box a little points even more directly to him by sharing similar colors. I know what you’re thinking. What’s up with Mr. Dynamite, huh designer guy who says things, what’s up with that? Well, believe it or not that’s just as important as every other element, specifically the tilt of it. While it’s not an exact line, it gives him a imaginary base to stand on so he’s not just floating in space. Our minds (without knowing it, now that you do it might not) create shapes, images, and lines on it’s own, that’s how we can know letters and words without seeing the entire shape of them. The same thing often happens with images, half faces become full faces.
Album artwork isn’t the most important aspect of an album, but it can be something that leaves a lasting impression and it can get your listeners really excited about the music they’re about to listen to.
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