Album Covers (2/3)

The Shit Music EP was something I worked on with Jack. Here I have included a line drawing which I then filled in with some other colours for the final product. I created the cover in order to represent the idea that Jack is 'sick' of shit music within the industry. The album acts as a rock opera of sorts that highlights the story of a man who is disgruntled with the music industry and then finds a singer to work with him who promptly abandons him and goes on to sing corporate music which doesn't feel as genuine.

This idea came about from making a series of brief sketches before settling on the head sketch, which I better refined to look like Jack. As a matter of fact his glasses hold some detail which were on his old spectacles which he has since replaced. I made sure to get Jack's distinct hair and glasses which I think helped with implementing into the logo I have made.



Additionally,  I would like to note that in terms of the colour the choice for a yellow background came about from listening to Jack Johnson's album In Between Dreams. In fact I was partly inspired by it which I will talk about later.

Another point to raise is that Jack didn't include the 'Jack Calvesbert' as this was when he started to foray into the stage name of Elsewhere Head. Another point to raise is that Jack printed out some albums himself but they do not contain a back cover, therefore whilst he does not require one I will still make a back cover for my project.

I sketched out the final design and then took a photo which I drew over in Illustrator and coloured in Photoshop, however since I included an illustrated image of Jack's face in this album I believe my new design should not be similar. I have decided to not include Jack's face on the front cover of the new album as it might seem narcissistic or otherwise not distinguish it from his older work. This is a new release and should therefore be distinct.

The Other Designs:

One

This first design saw me include Jack's iconic glasses with the title coming out behind and in fact the text looked fuzzy because I wanted to make it seem more organic.

Additionally, the text is connected by a stem which is included as a means of otherwise signifying the concept of the album originates from the glasses (which represent Jack). In terms of the striped lenses and the goo which seems to come from the glasses, I suppose that I just added it because I would be able to fill it in with colour later on and so wished to incorporate as much variety of colour as I could - since Jack specifically asked for it to be colourful.

He didn't really tell me what to put as an artist name and so I put Jack DC because those are his initials, this was mainly due to the fact that I didn't have enough space on the design to write his full name.

Two
This design features a fish-like creature eating its own tail. I thought that this infinite paradox symbolised the recycling of music which the EP seems to indicate. The idea was more of an after thought as I initially just started drawing the fish's eyes.

I included a lot of detail in the scales and the drool but in terms of the fonts not really. I went with bubble writing and actually failed to include Jack's name on the cover. While he did like the design he just felt as though it wasn't related to the actual album enough. I suppose that this reinforces my decision to not follow the design choices of Thee Oh Sees who include cool but unrelated images in their album covers.

Three
This inspired the final design and essentially what I removed from it was the border and the neck of the character. Additionally, while I started with no eyeballs in the character, I soon changed it and gave it glasses. The inclusion of the glasses made it look more like Jack and helped to make the image feel less uncomfortable as it was quite eerie having the eyeballs melt away.

The text can be found in the mouth of the character to show that the music is what comes out of his mouth, otherwise suggesting it is not 'shit' music. Additionally, the decision to get rid of the portrait was simply because I felt that it wasn't needed - which Jack agreed with.

The text was also later changed to Jack Calvesbert as I was able to fit it in after tracing in Illustrator.