While belonging to a large variety of different genres and having little in common at first glance, these album and book covers share in a dynamic approach that seeks to embody and elevate the artistry contained within. Like the previous works, these covers often blend the usage of digital media software with more traditional methods like drawing, painting, and photography.
ALBUM & BOOK
COVERS
MORE- DOPAMINE
California rapper More released three singles in order to build anticipation for his second record, Deep From Jump. For the cover of the second single, Dopamine, More wanted to convey a heightened sense of excitement and provide a visual representation of a dopamine rush. To execute the concept, multiple firework explosion images were sourced from digital photos, videos, and film stills from family albums. The images were then utilized in a layered digital collage approach in Adobe Photoshop. The colors were dramatically heightened, the explosions were isolated and masked, and textures of smoke and paint were overlaid to unify the image. In addition, palm trees from the cover of a previous single, Before Flight, were added to create a sense of perspective, to provide frame and contrast to the dazzling fireworks display, and to create a visual link to the aforementioned single cover. Hand drawn lettering in the same style denotes the artist name and song title, and More’s branding logos are also featured.
MORE- PAY IT FORWARD
In his debut album Pay It Forward, More sought to intertwine Hip-Hop history and out-of-the-box cultural references with snapshots of his life to establish himself as an up and coming artist. The cover artwork to the album captures the slice-of-life aspect of the album by picturing him ordering from a local classic burger joint. A digital photo was edited in Adobe Photoshop to make adjustments to the colors, and another photo from the opposite vantage point was overlaid in order to create the effect of More’s reflection peering back at him. The typography contrasts More’s own thin and expressive handwriting with the heavier, sleeker, and more modern Century Gothic typeface that displays the album’s title.
VARIOUS ALBUM COVERS
These different album covers contain a mix of personal projects, commissions from musicians, and student works. The approach in creating each cover has mirrored the content and musical style of the artists whom they were created for. This has resulted in a wide range of stylistic variance that sometimes mixes traditional and digital mediums and sometimes originates solely in the digital. Whether it is the golden age of comics influenced artwork for rapper Suspenseful, the Japanese ukiyo-e style illustration for Hip-Hop duo The Average Joes, or the Black Flag-inspired cover for the politically charged punk rock project Failed State, these covers seek to create iconic visual representations for the artists and the music of each record.
THE QUEEN GRAPHIC NOVEL COVER
Contrasting the lush and colorful artwork contained within this self-published graphic novel, the cover of The Queen pictures the main character of the book in grayscale against a simple background. The glowing orange wings, along with stripes of a starry night sky provide a colorful contrast to the otherwise minimalistic palette of this cover.
HOUSE OF MIRRORS BOOK COVER
As part of a student project to create a book cover using Adobe Photoshop, the House of Mirrors book cover visually represents the main setting of a short-story written in a different creative-writing focused class. Beginning with images gathered from the internet, the layers were masked to seamlessly blend them together. Color filters were utilized along with texture overlays in order to unify the image and create a hazy and unsettling, yet bright and alluring atmosphere that aligns with the tone of the story.
