Creative Challenge 3
ART 104 | Album Cover (Photoshop)
We’re going to use this classic internet game and a little bit of chance operations to help us create 3 album covers and practice the basics of image editing in Photoshop.
1. Go to Wikipedia (Links to an external site.)
2. Click on “Random Article” (Links to an external site.) in the far left column.
3. The first article is the name of your band. If you absolutely hate it just click Random Article again.
4. Go here and click Generate Quote (Links to an external site.) (Links to an external site.) to create a random quote. Or here (Links to an external site.). The last four or five words of the quote is the title of your album.
5. Go here and generate a random image (Links to an external site.).. Click on your chosen image to go to Pixabay and download a higher quality version.
6. Use your new Photoshop skills, knowledge of typography and design, and impeccable taste to create an album cover.
7. Make 3 completely different album covers (new image, new band name, new quote, new design, etc.) at a size of 1000x1000 pixels and a resolution of 72 pixels per inch.
Admittedly, I enjoyed working with Photoshop far more than Illustrator. It was harder to use, but I feel like it was more within my creative capabilities. The assignment layout also allowed me some modicum of newness to stretch my comfort zone. I began with doing three random articles, quotes, and photos. I then matched up what I thought went best with each element.
The first Wiki article I wanted to do was Gastrotheca monticola. It sounds really cool and is apparently the name of a species of frog from Peru. I paired it with the quote “mediocrity is a sin” and an images of eyes emerging from a wall from Pixabay. I began with aligning the image so the larger eye was near the center as I wanted it to be my focal point. I then added the Gastrotheca monticola. I choose the a black, gray, white color scheme for the text as I wanted something that worked with the image rather than contrasting from it. The font selected met my requirement of having a slight techno, thick sci-fi feeling to it. I wanted something weird but functional to align with the eyes. The text around the eyes was next. I wanted the main album title to mesh with the focal point and to try some manipulation tools. The instructor may have mentioned something about how we shouldn’t really be wrapping our text, but I think I’ve justified it with a nice piece of art (sorry, Professor Robinson). The piece felt a little empty so I decided to semi-replicate the band name on the right with a keyword from the quote. I choose the word mediocrity over sin as it allowed me to better interact with the other eye.
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The resulting image is what I think the cover of a trap or screamo album would like. It reminds me of the covers of the niche, small artists my boyfriend likes to search for and listen to.
For the second one, I wanted to do a different aesthetic entirely and mess with the image more than the typography. I put the gas mask off-center and laid the album name over it. I then started clipping flowers and the mask to lay over the letters. I wanted to look like the words were being trapped in the image. The band name is supposed to act more like a stamp on the album than blending in like the album title. I used colors from the flowers for the letters and the rectangular box highlighting the Madam Butterfly part.
The cover is something that I imagine an indie or pop artist would use. It’s light and simple, but also has a funky name and image.
The final album cover is something that I used inspiration to come up with. I looked through my Spotify albums to find an aesthetic I like and worked it into my own concept. I had originally made the blue border thicker and had dark blue, thin lines running through it. The detail clashed with the image and covered too much of it so I took away the lines and made the border thinner. I inserted the album title and arranged it so that ‘control’ would be the focus as I thought the image would be good for a punk bad and wanted to capture the punk ideology in there. I then added the band name around the borders as I didn’t want to have it directly on the image.
It reminds me of earlier indie punk/rock albums with the border and the stylized text layered over it simply.
