1.11.2021 - 0.11.2021 / Week 11 - Week 14
Arwinda Nurul Izza / 0349913
Design Principle / Bachelor of Design in Creative Media
Final Project
LECTURE
Visual literacy : interdisciplinary concept that is being applied
in many fields. This skill requires deliberate learning and process. Visual
analysis is one of the essential part of visual literacy.
Visual Analysis
A method of understanding design that focuses on the visual elements
and principles. In a Strictest way it can be defined as a description and
explanation of visual structure for its own sake. Although, its actual
purpose can also help us understanding the designer intention and also
better understand how the design communicate ideas, content or
meaning.
Constructing A Visual Analysis
- Phase 1: Observation
Try to describe and identify a visual elements of a design with our on word
by closely looking at it. Also, avoid looking at and read about the
design for the shake of this phase. Main things to highlight in here is
looking, thinking, and finding good language to communicate what we see
or notice.
- Phase 2: Analysis
Try to make statement about the work based on our observation in phase
1. Notice the elements combine together to create a whole and what
impact/effect that it gives to the audience. Applying the Design Principles
that we have learned in previous exercises is essential in this phase.
- Phase 3: Interpretation
Our observation and analysis have to fused with facts about the
design/designer and historical context that is trustworthy published source.
Comparing related popular arts can furtherly helps reinforce the point
of defining the meaning and purpose for the design that we choose
to analyse.
INSTRUCTION
1. Final Project Part 1: Visual Analysis
Observation
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| Fig.1.0 Visual Analysis - Design (Source: Pinterest) |
This design appear with an artwork music album format. To be
precisely, it looks like a LP or vinyl album design cover. I notice the
designer added a plastic cover details with some printed black
typography in various typefaces on each corner of it. Some typefaces like
on the right down corner has more weight and the upper one have a lighter
weight. There is also a yellow circle typographic sticker on top of
the plastic wrapper. Moving on to the design on the centre, there is a
framed picture with double black strokes surrounding it. There is a
three human figure with different clothing and hair color (red,
yellow, white) and they are simultaneously looking up with a dark
green background. Also, there appear to be a glowing macbook figure
on the half bottom of the human figure. On top of the picture, there is
really light weighted typography with one with bigger font and one smaller
one. Lastly, if you pay attention to the top corner of the
artwork you can also find a small "AGE OF" text with a right
alignment and a long black line on top of it as well.
Analysis
The composition on this design is really focus on the centered
elements (the framed image and text on top of it) which can be helped notice
with the grid system. It emphasize our attention straight forward to that
part first when seeing this design. I also notice that there is a lot
of contrast going on this particular artwork. First, applying a dusty
off-white background and adding it with a really vibrant yellow color and
black texts create more contrast that brings the elements more readable and
noticeable. Then, the 3 human figures on the centre along with the
glowing macbook picture below it also appear to be more popped out to
the viewer eyes because of the darker color background behind it. Finally,
the alignments on this album create a balance and harmony on the
overall design with the use of various typefaces and font
weights.
Interpretation
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| Fig.1.1 Age Of, Album Art Design Template (Source: thevinylfactory.com) |
This album artwork turns out to be a whole concept with CD packaging
details and more in depth look of the inner vinyl spread and backside of it
also (All details can be seen in fig. ). Based on the vinyl factory web
article, this album artwork was designed by
David Rudnick. This album is titled
'Age Of ' and released it by Oneohtrix Point Never in
2018. The article also mentioned a use of a retro futuristic typographic
concept which they found outstanding with a diverse choice of typefaces (thevinylfactory).
From the facts above, I believe that a dynamic and wide variety of
typefaces are a really nice and modern combinations when its being
applied in an artwork. In the other, article from behance it mentioned
that Typography Chaos is listed as one of the trend in 2021 graphic design
(Behance, graphic design trends 2021).
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| Fig. 1.2 Artwork example #1 (Source: Behance) |
Figure above is one of the artwork that I originally found in Pinterest that contains a chaos typography example on it . This designer have a whole page of they work with blue poster theme on their behance page.(Behance: Yaan W)
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| Fig.1.3 Artwork Example #2 (Source: Behance) |
Figure 1.3 is another poster artwork that give an example of a good retro typographic composition based on a song (Kids See Ghosts by Kanye West). This designer have a lot portfolio for this type of design as they were conducting some sort of a project to achieve a signature on their artworks. (Behance: Diego L. RodrÃguez)
2. Final Project Part 2: Design
A. Visual Research
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| Fig.2.0 Visual Research #1 (Source: Pinterest) |
In respect to my Visual Analysis, I tried to explore more variety of album design that comes to my likely in Pinterest. First, come to the figure 2.0. I adore the way the designer arrange the photography element and text on the below. The artwork seems come in right place even though the placement looks cluttered. Also, the black and white color palette used really good in here too. I personally will adopt the way the designer apply their typography hierarchy from this design.
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| Fig.2.1 Visual Research #2 (Source: Pinterest) |
Figure 2.1, I really love the arrangement of the rounded rectangle/square shapes here. This element delivered me to the texts around like 'Manic' and 'Halsey' which here sort of applying a movement design principle. I will later use this as the inspiration of my design.
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| Fig.2.2 Visual Research #3 (Source: Pinterest) |
The usage of monotonous color and black n white blend so smoothly on this one design(figure 2.2). Like how the blue title on the left "Pressure In My Palms' being reflected on the blue picture in the below right. Besides, the collage on this artwork also have many more abstract elements scattered inside it. However, the design principle properties that I want to take out from here is their utility of monotonous color. I found it might be help as the color palette that I will choose its not wide.
B. Idea Exploration
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| Fig.3.0 Original Album Artwork of Yerin Baek - Love, Yerin (Source: Official Twitter @yerinbaek) |
For this final project, I want to attempt making an album artwork inspired of the song that I like recently. The song called 'Antifreeze' and it sang by Yerin Baek. A brief biography of this singer, she is a south-koran female solo singer who surprisingly has released albums with full English songs included in it despite having a major audience from her native country. She used to majorly sings ballad songs but nowadays her music genre are more wider. The song that used for my design, 'Antifreeze', is a re-make song from an old band in 2010s. This song is featured in her latest album named 'Love, Yerin' or 'Present' if we go by the translation from the Korean title. Basically in this album, she includes a remake version of old Korean songs.There's obviously a full design concept like the figure 3.0 for their original work. From here, My aim is to to observe which direction this album go to so I can still deliver the message that the singer's want but also interpret it with my design idea.
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| Fig.3.1 Photoshoot of Yerin Baek - Love, Yerin (Source: Official Twitter @yerinbaek) |
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| Fig.3.2 Photoshoot of Yerin Baek - Love, Yerin (Source: Official Twitter @yerinbaek) |
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| Fig.3.3 Photoshoot of Yerin Baek - Love, Yerin (Source: Official Twitter @yerinbaek) |
Figure 3.1 - 3.3 are the concept photo being done for 'Love, Yerin' album. I used this as my source and reference for my album artwork design as I planned to include her figure inside it. Among this photos, I choose the Fig. 3.2 as it depicts the meaning more(will be explain in the next section) of the 'Antifreeze' song and seems like give her visual more impactful impression. Hence, why I choose it as one of the material for my design.
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Fig.3.4 Bluevinyl logo - Yerin Baek' Record Label (Source: Official IG @bluevinyl.official)
Figure 3.4 actually only being needed for my final CD Mockup design. To make the design more realistic, I'm planning to add such details later on.
C. Idea Development
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| Fig.4.0 My Branstorming of ideas |
As I have mentioned before, I want to understand the artist's intention/message of the song 'Antifreeze' first. So based on a video interview, she said that she wants to remake the song feels warmer compare to the old/original version of it. Also, she mentioned that the last part of the lyrics depicts the message most of this song.
"Even though it is hard to find such love that never changes for a long time,
I'm looking for you who would gladly wait for such love"
Yerin Baek Interview regarding the meaning of 'Antifreeze' click here.
After researching of the artist's intention, then I listened to what I feel about this song to be able to comprehend further. The song is really refreshing and feels like a breeze of wind when listening to it. I can imagine walking beside the street why blasting this song in a sunny summer day.
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| Fig.4.1 My Sketches for album artwork design |
Based on the obeservation that I made, I want to deliver this warm, fresh and comforting feeling of this album through the album artwork that I will make. Above are some attempts sketches for the design of my artwork. Initially, I started to think of the layout first for this sketches like the placement of the text, shapes, etc. Then, I mix and matched each photography from fig 3.1-3.3 to my liking. However, at the end I go for the third design (heavily inspired by the figure 2.1) so I change it a lil bit in my digitalization process.
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| Fig.4.3 Color Palette - Adobe Color Picker |
For the color palette, I choose this soft blue colors because it reminds me of serenity/breezy feeling and off white or yellowish white color because of the warm that its offers. The color are picked from the figure 3.4 poster.
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| Fig.4.4 Typography Comparison |
Here are some experiment for the typeface that I will use in the artwork. I will use 'Dassie Demo' for the title 'Antifreeze' as it attracts your eyes first because of their heavy weight. And I also use 'Monument Extended' for the lyrics that included in the poster as the words are light but readable enough for in small fonts. Also, lastly I use Helvetica Nueu for the album title to give contrast with the song title and lyrics inside it . This details can be viewed in figure 4.7.
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| Fig.4.6 Photography layout - Work Progress |
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| Fig.4.5 Clipping Mask - Work Progress |
The layout progress for the photography element is intended to direct movement for the audience eyes to the title song. In the left picture of figure 4.5, I didn't synchronize the images when clipping masking it with shapes front. However, I found this arrangement make the portion of the artist is quite misleading and make her figure in a weird visual like the distance from face to shoulder looks to short. Therefore, I try to solve this by placing each images for each clipping mask proportion on to another (figure 4.5 right).
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| Fig.4.7 Typography layout - Work Progress |
Here is the source of the English translation lyric of the 'Antifreeze' song. I positioned the album title and lyrics alignment in the most opposite of the song title so it can be seen as the 2nd important information to be read when looking to this art work.
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| Fig.4.8 Radius Gradient - Work Progress |
Previously, I was only going with the plain off-white background. However, after adding a blue blurred gradient on the empty space between the above text alignments and the picture below, it gives more harmony or connection between the two elements.
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| Fig.4.9 Final Album Design- Work Progress |
When I was about to finish the design, I thought to make another one with blue background just to add more exploration.This second design aren't working that smooth as the contrast of the attention heavily directed on the image and the song title or typography texts are overshadowed by the light blue background. Hence, I going on with the initial work (left figure in Figure 4.9).
D. Artwork Template
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| Fig.5.0 CD Mockup website (source: Behance) |
In this project, I wonder what if I continue and make a simple physical CD Mockup for the album. This result on me founding this free template from Pinterest (fig 5.5). The template already provided in psd file and it's only require me to add my file in it with some small adjustments. Link: Free Album CD Mockup
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| Fig.5.1 Soft Noise Added - Work Progress |
For the starter, I added a really soft noise to the album artwork (after exporting this from illustrator) because it gives an effect like a paper texture.
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| Fig.5.2 Adding Bluevinyl logo - Work Progress |
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| Fig.5.3 Additional Design at the left layout - Work Progress |
Then, I actually needed to design an extra part for the side of the CD Mockup. Here I just go with a straightforward text that indicate the song title and singer name. And also I added a label name and copyrights information to give more details on this album.
For Album Credit info can click here.
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| Fig.5.4 CD Design comparison - Work Progress |
Another additional design that I have to make its the CD. I have some conflicts whether to add the title name like the design no. 3 and 4 in figure 5.4 or just left it blank. But, the design with the text look a lil bit out of place. Therefore, I go with the design 3# because it embrace both color that express warmth and breeze which inline with the meaning of the title song 'Antifreeze'.
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| Fig.5.1 Making a album layout - Work Progress |
For the final touch, I made a album spreadsheet template and song visualizer with this album artwork so the audience can picture the intention of my design better.
FINAL OUTCOME
Fig. 6.0 Final Draft Final Project_Visual Analysis 'Antifreeze' Album Template
Fig. 6.1 Final Draft Final Project_Visual Analysis 'Antifreeze' Front Cover
Fig. 6.2 Final Draft Final Project_Visual Analysis 'Antifreeze' CD Design
Vid. 6.4 Final Draft Final Project_Visual Analysis 'Antifreeze' Audio
Artist: Yerin Baek
Song: 'Antifreeze'
no copyrights infringement intended. all rights reserved to the original owner.
Rationale
My intention to create this design initially is because I wanted to challenge myself to create an album artwork. This decision brings me to choose the song 'Antifreeze' which has being my favorite song to go listen lately. I want to deliver how I feel when listening to this particular song without fully removing the original artist message by creating an album artwork. A warmth feeling that this song embrace its expressed by the off-white color dominating on the background and also the photography of the singer herself that is seated near window with sunlight shining through it. Other feeling that I want to convey, is the breeziness that can be felt by listening or just by hearing the title 'antifreeze' with the color soft blue. Then, if retry to pay attention to the typography surrounded the design here, I purposely put a bolder and bigger title size to directly attract the audience attention to it.
FEEDBACK
General feedback - clearly state the obvious properties in the observation part of visual analysis. It's okay to have short sentence in there.
REFLECTION
Working on this final project was quite fun as I have always been wanting to try and design an album artwork. There are also so many new knowledge that I discovered especially in Adobe Photoshop and for sure brings me one step closer of getting familiar with the app. This is the first time for me to go this far for a project like providing an album template and audio visualizer. Although, the thing that I regret the most is rushed through last minute for this album artwork so I cannot get a proper feedback from the lecturer.
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