Album Design Art Ideas

When coming up with some ideas and design concepts for our album's art I wanted to hark back to some of the key features of our band and specifically the song that we were covering. As an indie rock band doing things by the book and being part of the status quo just isn't an option, this is why I wanted to try and help make our album unique. I wanted it to stand out and make the viewer think about it for a few moments. Over the course of this blog post I will outline why I chose some of the artistic ideas that I came up with.

Front cover

The Front Cover

For the front cover I wanted to create a very unique and hopefully iconic design. I chose to replicate Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man illustration but incorporate our style with it. The basic idea is that the black silhouette is the darker subconcious side of the character that appears in the song Across the Skyline and the white, clear figure is the other supressed yet real character. In a way the design shows that the silhoutted figure is blocking the clear figure which is shown by his arms being held out in such a manner. The clear man seems to be trying to stretch and escape from behind the shadow which is shown in the song Across the Skyline. This design works with the name of the album, which is Trapped Reflections with the silhouetted man's dominance showing that he is trapping the clearer character. Both figures are the same person but two sides of the person, which is why they share the same face and head. The sharing of the same face shows that they are the same person to the viewer yet the vacant expression shows that the characters emotions are trapped and suppressed by the silhouetted figure once again.

The circular design around the two figures is also taken straight from Da Vinci's illustration and it's inclusion shows once more that the figure is trapped within a sort of bubble almost. The main theme of course is that feeling of being trapped which I feel has been expressed in a variety of ways with
this album cover design.

Inside panels and disc

The Front and Back Inside Panels

The image to right is of my front and back inside designs. For this I was aiming for a simplistic concept that represented the band in an indie sort of way but also reflected the name of the song and some of the lyrics within it.

The disc design is deliberatly blank to reflect the individualism of indie rock and the band itself. Fans of indie rock and indie rock artists don't conform and they don't buy into brands and labels. I believe that making the disc blank shows that feeling and reflects it effectively.

The background of the entire inside is also again deliberately a single colour. This is to contrast with the white of the disc to make it stand out but to also allow the birds to fit into the design on the left-hand-side.  The birds are shown in the design flying off into the distance which relates to some of the lyrics within Across the Skyline and the name of the song itself. The song itself features the word skyline which has a connection to birds which we incorporated into our music video and which also features in the song. The lyrics "bitter the bird that flies" are reflected with these birds on the inside panel of my album design. The idea behind incorporating them within the album is that they signify freedom, which is something that our character doesn't have. This contrasts with the front cover and I believe forces the audience to think for a few moments about the meaning.

Back cover

The Back Cover

The back cover of my design is again playing on the idea of being trapped and again focusing on our clearer character. The man is shown pushing up against the border between him and the song names list. The song names list is irrelevant to the image of the man but the border between them is not. It signifies a wall or a barrier. This barrier is trapping him and he is shown pushing with all of his strength trying to remove it. This again relates back to the concept shown in the previous designs and the theme of the song. The contrast of white on black makes it stand out visually and it fits in with the theme of the rest of the album design. 

I haven't come up with any song name ideas to fill the list with at this stage and the text below the man shown with the lines is showing the credits and some extra detail we will be including. The barcode on the right of course is very recognisable and it's just a common feature of albums so I decided to incorporate it within my design idea.