“It’s almost 3D, this album!”

Today’s the day Rave Digger comes out- Danny Byrd’s latest album and my latest project for Hospital. This has been my biggest project both in terms of the amount of stuff I’ve created for it and the amount of exposure it has been getting, so in my usual feigned attempt at quantifying the work I’ve put in, here is a blog post showing everything I’ve managed to round up from the album, along with a bit about the process of designing it.

Continue reading ““It’s almost 3D, this album!””

How Sweet!

Hey look! Here is my cover artwork for Danny Byrd’s new release ‘Sweet Harmony’! It’s only a single, but it appears to be getting a bit of attention- yesterday I discovered it has been playlisted on Radio 1, which means it’s getting daytime airplay by the likes of Fearne Cotton (Fun fact: she went to the same high school as me, and was a pretty good artist. Agh! Digression!) on the country’s biggest young radio station… Pretty cool! And not only that, but Dev, the early morning breakfast DJ, has nominated it as his record of the week- Imagine waking up to that at 6 in the morning if you weren’t expecting it!

Anyway, here’s a little bit about the cover art, as I am pretty pleased with it!

I was thinking about doing something rave-related, as the original is a classic of the early 90s rave era. This got me thinking about candy ravers, which brought me around to sweets. I told Hospital about the idea, who immediately saw the pun in the track’s title, which I had overlooked until it was pointed out to me. Agh! I got to work on the idea as the visual pun was too good to ignore, but after several trips to the local sweet shop and many cover ideas using all things from red rope liquorice to candy bracelets, it just wasn’t working.

It wasn’t until the weekend, when Lilly was baking, that I found myself staring at her collection of cake decorations, thinking how much I liked the colours of them, when suddenly the idea clicked with me, and I realised the decorations were essentially tiny sweets in themselves.

To the right, you should be seeing a tiny video. It is a (very short!) timelapse I took while putting the cover together. I made a reverse stencil using the lovely new typeface Tungsten (I couldn’t resist after it was noted as an answer to Compacta, which I have been using for Danny’s artwork for a while now), which I backed with sticky labels for the sugary treats to stick to. I guess it was a bit like giant glittering really!

Sweet Harmony will be out at all your favourite physical and digital record stores on 1st February 2010.

 
You are currently reading
Page 1