Art Portfolio Project: Concept Research

In this blog, I will make a research about the concept of my projects that I am going to make which is album/cover. I will research and consider the aspects that I should be careful with and the elements that I should be provided and included in my album/vinyl design. The purpose of this research is to make sure that I am not going to have any technical issues and error, also, exploring the how music album should have been designed. 

Blue Hawaii (1961)
Source: Elvis The Music

When artist is about to publish their music album, the need to have album cover as the presentation of the music that are going to publish. This is crucial for them as to attract the attention of the unusual listener. New aspects of theme work of the artist, compelling the listener to listen to the music can be achieve by a stunning album cover. (Kipp, 2017)

Nectar by Joji (2020)
Source: Archive

Before I start making an album/vinyl, Kipp (2017) stated that before straight away designing the design, it is better to step behind and think more about the identity of the album as this will help the music reach the correct audience. She suggest that designer should think about the identity quest which is, Who are you?, Who is your audience and What do you want your listeners to feel when they hear your music?.

For this Art Portfolio projects, I am going to form a group with my friends name Ange. Since the style and theme that I am focusing on is Vintage Japanese style, I am targeting Gen Z and Millennial audience and I want them to feel in a great emotion when listening to the music.

Takashi Murakami for Kanye West: Graduation (2007)
Source: Juxtapoz

In my album covers, I should be considering the key components that are crucial and should be add into my design. The most known key components is the colour. Colour is the most important aspects even in all type of design as colour have attachment to human emotion. (Kipp, 2017) Also, colour give a great psychology behind human mind. 

Understand color psychology & brand seduction 
Source: Steak World Wide

This visual here is really helpful to enhance the comprehension of how colour psychology work. According to Watson (2021), it is important to consider what colour is the best to connect between the artist and the listener as the role of colour psychology is effective. Since I am planning to make Japanese style album/vinyl cover art, I should be consider to use Japanese colour palette.

Under the Wave off Kanagawa by Katsushika Hokusai (1831)
Source: Met Museum

Japanese colour theory is based around natural elements, with the 5 main colours being blue (wood), red (fire), yellow (earth), white(metal) and black (water ). Typical Japanese colour schemes have pale and dark shades of green or brown, vivid red or orange of accent colour and one of the example of the picture above. There are many kind of colour palette and different colour combination worn at different times of year. (Kimonos, 2011) These are the kind of colour at different kind of season:

by Wafuku Kimonos (2011)

Source: Wafuku Wordpress

The next key components that I should consider is typography. Typography is important for my album/vinyl as I will definitely use it in my design and the placement of it. There are types of typography like Serif, San Serif, Script and Display/Decorative. 

Scenery (1976)
Source: Discogs

Since my album/vinyl cover that I am going to design is Japanese style, I should also insert Japanese typography to make my design more emphasize towards the style. According to Nagase (n.d.), written in Japanese consists of thousands of characters across four character sets, hiragana, katakana, kanji and the latin alphabet. Theses four character can be combine and use in the same sentence, and they have their own purpose and rules.  

Next, after considering all that key components, it is time to move on to the details of the actual album components. The aspects of the details that I should provide are band and album name, track list, licensing and legal information, easy on the Internet and liner note. (Kipp, 2017) For band and album name, since I am forming a band for my friends and me, I am trying to combining the name for both of us. My name is Syafiq and my friends is Ange. The combination that I came up was like Syange. The other name that I came up is totally out vision of our name but it describe our friendship, which is The Amalgamation. The album name that would be different for every album, and it need to be related to the graphics of the design. I will think of it when designing it. Next, I am making an album cover that can be hang on the wall for this projects, I do not think making a track list would necessary and I also not making any music, same goes to liner note. About licensing and legal information, I will avoid copyright. Last but not least, avoid putting any social link on the album cover as it can unwillingly date my album. 

References:

Kimonos, W. (2011). Japanese Colour Names & Seasonal Combinations. [online] Wordpress. Available at: https://wafuku.wordpress.com/2011/05/15/japanese-colour-names-seasonal-combinations/ [Accessed 11 May 2024].

Kipp, M. (2017). How to design an album cover: the ultimate guide. [online] 99designs. Available at: https://99designs.com/blog/design-other/how-to-design-album-cover/.

Nagase, E. (n.d.). Seven rules for perfect Japanese typography - AQ - Digital product design studio in Tokyo and Paris. [online] www.aqworks.com. Available at: https://www.aqworks.com/blog/perfect-japanese-typography#:~:text=Designing%20in%20Japanese&text=Visually%20complex%20kanji%20combine%20with [Accessed 11 May 2024].

probbo (2013). Japanese colour theory. [online] Drawpaint illustration. Available at: https://drawpaintblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/03/japanese-colour-theory/#:~:text=Japanese%20colour%20theory%20is%20based [Accessed 11 May 2024].

Watson, B. (2021). 5 Essential Album Cover Design Tips. [online] STEAK WORLDWIDE. Available at: https://www.steakworldwide.com/blog/5-essential-album-cover-design-tips [Accessed 11 May 2024].