Secret 7" SB

BRIEF

DELIVERABLES

CONCEPT

From Secret 7”: We take 7 tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around and press each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. We then invite creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style, resulting in a one-of-a-kind sleeve for every 7”.

Two designs for two record sleeves/ One for each. With a clear concept and artwork.

I plan on creating two separate pieces, one for T-Rex and one for Black Sabbath. I have chosen these songs because I believe they will be the most interesting to explore with my style and approach to design.

TONE OF VOICE

Get It On by T-Rex is all about sex, however I want to approach this with subtlety and also link in how the song is used today; to reference the 1970’s.

Create two different pieces of artwork for two separate album covers. The brief is extraordinarily simple and people who enter can submit any kind of artwork; fine art, design, photography and so on. The only rule to follow in this brief is that you cannot use the band of the song name on the cover. It much be a piece of artwork of design which represents the contents.

Funny, subtle, satirical, illustrative.

Age of Reason by Black Sabbath is all about societies lack of reasoning. I would like to work out a way to portray the message as well as Sabbaths aging members.

SECRET 7”

RESEARCH Having written my concept the following stage of this brief involved finding images that represented the bands I was looking at - as well as images which could be used as visual puns on what I wanted the sleeves to convey.

For T-Rex I wanted to use the Cold War as a reference to the era that the band operated in as well as using soviet military technology as phallic objects.

I found that the Scud launcher works better for the latter but the tank is a more recognisable object, so is more suitable for as a symbol of war in that era.

For Black Sabbath I wanted to take a different approach to the problem, looking at the bands identity. Ozzy is always screaming, lots of inverted crosses, lightning bolts and the use of black are the core identities for the band. My concept at this stage was to use one of these icons and layer some wrinkled skin on top to reference the ageing band. One thing that was hard to get across with this plan is that I have nothing against the fact that Ozzy’s approaching his 70’s. I wanted to approach this with a more celebratory manner; that people can make music at any age, than trying to make a joke.

RESEARCH As this is a brief about record sleeves I thought it would be a good opportunity to use my own record collection for reference and research.

These are a few of the sleeves displaying a range of styles in similar genres to T-Rex and Black Sabbath.

In many ways my appreciation of a record sleeve increases as its design becomes more simple. Many of the best here feature only one image or an icon. In my opinion the more complicated they get the worse they are aesthetically. As an example compare Queens of the Stone Age (top left) to the Arctic Monkeys (Third along centre).

Studying these sleeves gave me a definite style to carry onto my own work; regarding style and meaning over having an excess of image, text and colour.

Having said this my favourite design is Fuzz (second along, top). Although I find this the most interesting, and crafted design, it is not something I would be able to accomplish in the timescale of this brief.

DEVELOPMENT Developing the record sleeves was a fast process as this was a shorter brief. I started with some sketches illustrating the tone of voice or style I was interested in looking at following. After finding something to develop further I creates a quick resolution digitally.

For Black Sabbath I was interested in using their lightning bolt icon, often used in the ‘S’ of ‘Sabbath’ in the centre of the sleeve design. I then had an idea to layer this with different images of Ozzy, without the image being clear enough to see who it was. I was also interested in a idea where Ozzy was 100 years old and was still going strong. In many ways I regret taking this idea further, as It could have made a funny illustration.

For T-Rex I stuck with the idea to use a cold war image to represent the era of the bands operation as well as make a pretty subtle joke involving the gun on a tank, referencing some lyrics from the song ‘Get it On’.

T REX My final submission design for T-Rex ‘Get It On’ is an illustration of a cold war era tank, a T-62. The reference here is to the world that T-Rex lived in as well as the use of the main gun as a phallic object. Looking at winners of previous years I stripped the design back to show just one tank with two solid colours.

This submissions did not win a place in this years show. I think the main problem with the design is that It does not directly reference the song or band. Something I may have overstepped in the brief, as many of the submissions used song lyrics, I think that this submission has too subtle links to the song.

However, I really like the illustration. It is a simple design, but illustrates the shape of the tank with surprising detail for its size. It would be interesting to develop a series that follows a similar style sometime in the future.

BLACK SABBATH This submission didn’t get anywhere either. This time I think that the main problem lies in the message. The song is all about reasoning in the modern age. My cover is all about the band. Again I used an idea which neglected the song over the band as a focus point.

Again I like the cover myself and I think its very much in the style that is suitable for the band as it references some of their older icons and identity, as well as their state today as aging rockers.

As an evaluation of the success of both sleeve designs it seems that I missed the brief. Whilst I feel that the work is good the judges did not and that is all that matters when there is competition. As a result if I enter again next year I will put more work into understanding the song itself rather than the band who wrote it.