OUGD406 | STUDIO BRIEF 1 | SECRET 7 | BRIEF & INITIAL RESEARCH

BRIEF:

You should aim to visually explore the artists and tracks, through the context of the secret 7 competition. You are competing against 1000's of submission from all over the world, how can your design/designs stand out. What are the obvious responses? How can knowledge of these inform your own visual investigation. 100 designs for each track will be selected, pressed and printed to be exhibited and sold for £50 to raise money for the Nordoff Robbins Charity. Creatives from around the world are invited to interpret the tracks in their own style for every 7”.

The options are:

Dead Flowers // The Rolling Stones
Reflections // Diana Ross & The Supremes
Digital Witness // St. Vincent
Born Slippy .NUXX // Underworld
Sledgehammer // Peter Gabriel 
Go // The Maccabees
Let Forever Be // The Chemical Brothers

After getting the brief we listened to each song in full to get a feel for how it sounds and the kind of vibes they radiate.

Before allowing myself to make a final decision on the songs, I will begin by researching last years entries to see what was submitted and how the designers went about creating their covers.

 In these entries I really like the use of different mediums to create the effects, for example a lot of them were not wholey digitally based and had an organic feel to it (especially the last image) as a designer I do not want to only focus on one medium, but branch out and experiment with paint and illustration as I'm already passionate about them from doing art in previous education.

The sixth image featuring the bed was for a song called "ground for divorce", and the concept is pretty straightforward and clever, using  the layers of 'ground' in a marriage bed. I thought the use of illustration was extremely effective as it looks more hand rendered and personal.

Although I haven't picked a song for definite yet, I do want to create something using different materials and not just relying on my mac. Collage-looking design is already a vital part of my style of design as it is so it would be good to exercise that further with this brief.