Kylie – White Diamond

Digital design and superimposed concept for the packaging of my alternative, ballad Kylie album – White Diamond. Have just ordered some cd digi trays to attach on the inside of this cover (which I think is going to be a card fold-out). Experimented further with combining the fragmented Kylie imagery with my white diamond logo, and the existing white diamond type.

Oh, and in case you wondered, the track listing’s;

White diamond,

Made in heaven,

The crying game,

Put yourself in my place,

Where the wild roses grow,

Stay this way,

You are there,

Finer feelings,

Everything is beautiful,

(Instrumental/intro to Somewhere over the rainbow)

Somewhere over the rainbow,

Flower,

I believe in you,

Dreams,

If you don’t love me,

You’re the one,

Stars,

Better the devil you know

(They’re all either album tracks, b-sides, unreleased ballads, previously performed covers or alternative ballad versions of hits, a couple of which I’ve envisioned)

Vikunja Tracks packaging concept – Niklas Hessman

CD packaging is one form of graphic design I really love (and is probably the expensive reason behind the fact I’ve never even touched itunes), but can easily fall into the range of conventionally dull. The plastic casing, I hate, and the feel and print of carboard instantly give a sense of quality. And then there are the visuals: in my opinion to often falling into the trends of A) uninspiringly plastering an image of the band or artist on the cover, as if they’re more important than the music (which, most of the time, they are) or B) trying to replicate obscure, abstract cover images that possibly reflect the abstract, ephemerality of music and the difficulty in translating it into visuals, but doing so in a watered-down, not-quite-conceptual enough way that just ends up looking pretentious.

Rant over, and this packagaing design, in contrast, is fantastic. Designed by Niklas Hessman (portfolio here), a student and designer in Sweden, this packaging was a concept for the band Vikunja, who have a well established band identity – a bold logo, and clear colour scheme, which is definitely worth checking out on their website. Integrating this identity into the packaging was really well done – the colours (although already established) work really well together, and the CD itself is espcecially striking. The inner fold of the casing has to be my favourite part – using the logo form as inspiration for the folding of the packaging works incredibly well. The concept behind the track listing, intended to be handwritten and varied with new recordings, is quite interesting, and plays with the convention of album releasing, and justifies the packaging’s focus on representing the band and their identity rather than an album theme, though I’m not sure how well it would work in terms of longevity (and considering my dislike of special edition, “let’s add a cover or two” album rereleases).

Definitely worth checking out his portfolio.

Design Agency: Kent Lyons

With quite minimal and clean work, simple typography with a clear helvetica-atmosphere, and limited colour schemes, at first glance of the design work of agency Kent Lyons, it’s difficult not to appreciate their clean, pleasing aesthetics, but equally easy to place their work within that corporate, minimal graphic design box. It’s fair to say, I wasn’t entirely sure I’d have a lot to say about their work, and it took some real consideration to really appreciate their portfolio for any sense of uniqueness. The first design that stood out to me was the branding of Film London – a stunning typographic, conceptual logo that I’d fallen in love with once. It’s always nice to find out the designer behind a piece of design I’d glanced at once, but recalling it inspired me to really look at their work in a more intellectual light – and I realised just how wonderfully conceptual a lot of their work is.

Two of my favourite typographic pieces within their portfolio are the “Rmeixes” CD-packaging (the clever typographic element of which is only emphasized by the pleasing, minimal aesthetic), and the “competitive edge” element in a London Innovation leaflet design, which utilizes the form perfectly to play with concept. The agency’s skill with packaging and book-making perfectly accompanies their conceptual and heavily typographic, minimal design work – creating some really interesting work that generic, minimal, corporate work.

Designer: Thomas Østerhus

Another contemporary designer I’ve come across for inspiration –  Thomas Østerhus, a norwegian graphic designer (portfolio here – definitely worth checking out just for the welcome image, even.) Really nice typographic work – some great aesthetics, and some really powerful concepts as well – I’m not entirely sure why, but I was a little captivated by the “word of mouth” piece, as well as “form”. Some really nice branding/identity for Bella Centre as well – like the less fixed use of the arrow logo image, used across different forms and combined with photography (but without the London 2012 logo/MTV logo changing logo-fill cliche)

Designer: Chris Bolton.

Another fantastic design portfolio that has inspired me recently – work by Chris Bolton (website here). Really great combination of some more conceptual work including “Truly”, a fantastic exhibition design, and a mix of quite corporate and small time design projects – with a really pleasing aesthetic style. I especially really like the range of CD packaging designs, with some sometimes quite abstract and experimental visuals (a nice change from the mainsteam-pop convention of images of the artist dominating packaging and seeming to distract from what the music’s really about) – “Aeroplane”, with the combination of quite abstract, atmospheric watercolour/dye colours, and minimal but beautiful type – love work that uses the best of physical and digital elements.