Brief 07 _ Secret 7” Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
Context
Brief
Produce a 7” sleeve design for:
Secret 7” is an annual event that combined music and art for a good cause.
Elbow - Grounds For Divorce
They 7 tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around and press each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. They then invite creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style, resulting in a one-of-akind sleeve for every 7”. All money from the exhibition goes to War Child.
Target Audience
The target audience for the designs will be exhibition goers, the communication of the sleeve doesn’t need ot be too communicative, as the beauty of the exhibition is no one knows the artist or song is
Consider artworking it correctly with a 3mm bleed at 182 x 182mm in CMYK format.
Deliverables
7” sleeve design proposed and submitted to Secret 7”
#01
Reference Imagery
Human Form
From researching into record covers specifically, as you can see on the following page, the imagery is often bold and visually striking. Especially the work by Storm Thorgensen, I wanted to use this brief as a step away from simple illustration.
Brief 07 _ Secret 7” Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
Sculpture
Song Lyrics Analysis:
Freedom Splitting Up Divorce Independence Emotional Baggage Sentimental Alcholic Loss Relationships Unhappy Optimistic Trapped
I looked into the correlation between being emotionally, and mentally free, yet still held back. And how to communicate this physically, in a subconscious way.
I wanted to create a record cover that wasn’t simply an illustration, but more similar to a study of an object. The song itself is about being optimistic about the future, beginning to gain independent but also being burdened and held back by the past. Aesthetically, iron and industrially influenced sculptures capture the feeling of being trapped in a subtle way.
Communication
The song itself, I feel is purposefully quite broad in it’s meaning, and that’s the beauty in it. I aimed to also create a record cover, that allowed the viewer to draw their own conclusion from it, and not simply be told the message.
#02
Design Research
Communication
The song itself, I feel is purposefully quite broad in it’s meaning, and that’s the beauty in it. I aimed to also create a record cover, that allowed the viewer to draw their own conclusion from it, and not simply be told the message. The above examples of record cover design, I feel are strong examples of this. The best record covers allow you to link the song title/message and the cover art in your own way. I wanted to communicate in the same way.
Brief 07 _ Secret 7” Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
Peter Saville
Storm Thorgensen
Storm Thorgensen’s work is bold in it’s aesthetic, and involves a lot of art direction and use of scale. Again, you create the connection between the title, and content - with the image in your mind and this is the beauty in his work too.
Peter Saville’s work - particular for New Order posseses imagery not directly related to the content. We make the connection in our head. The relationship between colours is strong, as is the use of negative space and blocked out backgrounds, with a photographic cut-out on top, similar to a photomontage.
Scale is one of the biggest references from Storm’s work as the above examples show.
#03
Idea Generation
Brief 07 _ Secret 7” Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
Rough Sketches
Chosen Idea
Above, is the idea I chose to ran with. This brief was a weekend brief so I didn’t want to spend too long pushing on with different ideas and had to slightly brutal, and pick two.
Rough drawings of compositions of album art, definitely helped to visualise what would work, and what wouldn’t work so well. Some drawings specifically, really began to inform the final design development, and the relationship between the two is clear.
This rough sketch, has a strong relationship with the final design, and is a clear foundation for the design development that followed.
#04
Final Solution 01 - Record Sleeve Release
Brief 07 _ Secret 7� Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Concept
The material of the figure is worn, and metal, I worked with this to represent heavy baggage, through heavy iron material.
The basic concept of the sleeve is to create an image open to interpretation. From my research I realised the covers I felt were the strongest, by designers such as Storm Thorgensen, and Peter Saville’s work - particular for New Order - possesed imagery notdirectly related to the content. We make the connection in our head. Grounds For Divorce is a multi-layered songs, which has a message again open to interpretation, so I wanted the cover to depict this too.
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
The damage, and wear to the body depicts emotional scars, the naked figure represents freedom, independence and being completely open emotionally, as the song depicts.
I chose to work with an iron sculpture and cut it in such a manner, it looks optimistic for the future, while being unable to drop the baggage from the past, in this case a wall holding it back. The subtle gradient in the top right, is a represtation of optimism, and light, the figure is forming his body towards it.
#05
Applicatiom
Special Editions
Brief 07 _ Secret 7” Entry / Elbow – Grounds For Divorce
Special Editions of the release will incorporate colour, again with the same concept but now using a contrasting mix of red and blue to communicate brutal heat on the figure and is the opposite of the original in it’s colour tone and atmosphere. This symbolises the song being released as “in the dark”, and over the course of time is released, proves to be successful and the then-released special edition is now “in the light”.
Abbas Mushtaq:
Extended Practice Submission 22/05/14
Idents & Viral Application
The figure coming through the wall can work as a very subtle visualiser for music videos. Over the course of a 4-5 minute song, the figure very, very slowly comes through the wall. Without the viewer reasling, till they hit the start of the song again. This creates an extension of the singles campaign, and adds a sense of movement to the imagery.
#06