Album Cover Design
The Album Cover Design and Zoetrope project was aimed at creating a visual translation of a music album. The final product being the creation of both the album cover, and a moving zoetrope gif on the record vinyl itself. This project challenged me through its extensive iterative process to seek more creative, innovative, and cohesive design solutions. Utilizing the key concepts of Pattern and Materiality I sought to communicate the three main ideas associated with Mozart’s Requiem Mass: Death, Mozart’s fancy personal style, and the Catholic Mass. I used clear symbols and evocative elements of these concepts, arranging them in a cohesive and refined layout.
The Process
It was at first a matter of identifying the core icons and how they would be arranged.
For the cover I began creating the digital elements and figuring out the ideal arrangement.
Ultimately I went with this upper layout.
My final layout began to take shape, however many of the visual elements particular styles weren’t cohesive, opposing each other.
Ex: The roughness of the skull compared to the elegant decorative features
With earlier typefaces, I put the track list in a scroll, but this was also not working.
The track list arch was a little out of place, so I moved it to a more logical place within the church structure.
I also changed the “Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart” text to the same typeface it is written in on the front.
The next iteration was more successful in having the necessary detail and being consistent with the cover.
However, the movement of the exterior decorative elements when rotating was not working well.
For the back cover, I was at first going to carry over the musical note from the front, but these took away from the elegance of the church background.
To add more detail and consistency with the front cover, I added gradients to the pillars and arches of the church.
I also put the track list in a white window-like arch.
My initial zoetrope designs were very simple, but utilized the core icons associated with the album.
To fix this problem, I added more transitional motions for the decorative elements, as well as moving them to make sure they were pointed towards the middle at a consistent angle.
I also added a layer of skulls to fill out the zoetrope design.
