Sam Lane
Extended Practice
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
Brief / Background
Target Audience & Tone of Voice
Secret 7” is a project which takes 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-a-kind sleeve for every 7”. The creatives are made up of famous names through to gems we unearth through artwork submitted to us on our website. I have created work for Kevin’s project the last couple of years, and really wanted to keep involved with this great way of making money for charity.
The target audience for the vinyl itself are young and creative. 16-29 year olds, young professionals, living and working in the city, fans of music and of art. Need to find this balance, where as the over arching product range must be considered for all Elbow fans.
Brief Extension
Deliverables
As well as creating the one-off sleeve design for Kevin’s project, I also wanted to develop the project in the best way that I could. To do this, I used the generated visual aesthetic to then apply to a wider product range, ultimately creating something much more considered and applied than just a design placed on a vinyl.
- Secret 7” Vinyl Cover x2 - Tour Posters - Tickets - Band Merchandise - Reworked Website
01/09
Extended Practice
Sam Lane
01
Reference
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
Band Branding / Existing Sleeves
Exhibition / Display
Obviously it’s very important to reference the preexisting artwork of the band. As you can see from these examples I’ve picked out, the colour scheme of the brand is very muted, and the logo / brandmark of the band is consistently used throughout all releases.
It’s also very important to reference the actual exhibition space that the vinyls will be displayed in once they have been printed. The vinyl will sit on a gridded formation on shelves just like the images show above, this means that I need to make sure my vinyl stands out amongst lots of other designs.
02/09
Extended Practice
Sam Lane
02
Research
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
Song Lyrics (Interpretation)
Music Video
I research into the lyrics of the songs and I analysed them in a way which i would interpret them personally.
I personally really like the video for this track; it’s set inside a small local pub, which relates directly to the lyrics within the song and there are various subplots developing. A lot of drinking, getting lairy, fighting and playing pool occurs which again relates to my original interpretation of the lyrics.
“There’s a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall.” This is the way I interpret this song. The lyrics are written by a borderline alcoholic who is on the verge of losing his wife, as she is wanting a divorce. He spends a lot of time in his local pub, and this a long with his other actions are the ingredients to a cocktail he’s entitled “Grounds for Divorce.”
03/09
Extended Practice
Sam Lane
03
Development
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
Original Experimentation
Final Concept Experimentation
From listening to the lyrics and watching the video, I had multiple concepts which I wanted to explore. I already knew I wanted the cover to be illustrative, and not really type based. I had the idea of taking object in their simplest form and giving them a new meaning. This is why i was experimenting with the Cigarette in an Ash Tray and A Cigarette Case.
Eventually I settled on a concept of illustrating a ‘pub stool’ in a simplistic form. I experimented with types of illustration, types of chair and colour, but finally settles on using a muted colour palette so that the artwork would fit in with the preexisting Elbow Artwork.
04/09
Sam Lane
04
Extended Practice
Vinyl Sleeve Vinyl Inner Sleeve
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
Grounds for Divorce (Concept)
Illustration (Execution)
The Concept is based purely around the title and lyrics of the song. The main lyric of Inspiration being;-
The way that I wanted to execute this concept was through key-line illustrations which subtly suggest the setting and meaning behind the song. The Illustrated ‘Pub Stool’ is a subtle reference to the place where that the songwriter spends a lot of his time, and this is brought into more a scene’ using the boxed border and the horizontal / diagonal line which represents the bottom of the bar situated within the pub.
“There’s a hole in my neighbourhood down which of late I cannot help but fall.” This is the way I interpret this song. The lyrics are written by a borderline alcoholic who is on the verge of losing his wife, as she is wanting a divorce. He spends a lot of time in his local pub, and this a long with his other actions are the ingredients to a cocktail he’s entitled “Grounds for Divorce.”
05/09
Sam Lane
05
Extended Practice
Tour Posters
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7�
Colour Scheme
Positive / Negative
I have proposed a muted colour scheme for a variety of different reasons. The first of these being the general look and aesthetic of the band’s brand. I wanted the design and colour to reflect the minimalist and simplistic approach of the music itself.
The Tour Posters will take the visuals of the original vinyl covers and repurpose them for a new format. A serif typeface has been chosen for the copy, relating directly to the elbow band logo. There is a positive and negative poster which will work in tandem, pasted reversed, each poster next to the last.
06/09
Sam Lane
06
Extended Practice
Merchandise
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7”
07/09
Badges / Invites
Tickets
A personalised Invite is proposed to be sent out to all subscribed Elbow fans, as well as included in the limited edition vinyls. They are invitations for the pre-sale of the tickets to the farewell tour and fold out from a black envelope and into a personalised poster.
Customised tickets have been generated, proposed to be in collaboration with ‘See Tickets’. The tickets take on the new Elbow brand and are unique and personal to their farewell tour. They are stripped back, with a clean contemporary layout, which relates directly to the tour posters and other merchandise. These are collectable, printed in the two varying colour-ways.
Sam Lane
07
Extended Practice
Merchandise
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7�
T-shirts
Tote Bags
The front cover of the portfolio follows the brand system well. The orange stock is die cut and sits on top of the black stock, much like the business card does. This creates a tactile feature for the cover. The layout and page sizes have been carefully crafted for maximum displaying purposes.
The portfolio has been bound using a screw and post technique. The 2.5cm margin down the left side of the individual leaves, leaves enough room for the screw bind to keep the whole book together.
08/09
Sam Lane
08
Extended Practice
Web Presence
OUGD603
Elbow Secret 7�
Reworked Website
Multiple Platforms
As you can see from the images above, the website has been completely re-worked and re-vamped to give it a much more cleaner, stripped back, but bolder and ultimately more powerful interface. the link bar has been dramatically decreased in size and moved to the top, with the brand now applied to the top left hand corner. This keeps consistency and room for the many featured images and articles below it.
Features work on a rotating basis on the home page, These are updated regularly. The website has been adapted to be able to work on multiple platforms, and you can see how the content is altered depending on this. With the iPhone for example, the links are pushed into a pop out section that moves in from the right hand side of the screen, and folds back away when unused.
09/09