“Knowledge is happiness to me”
Miles Davis
When looking for examples of visual communication, album covers are great, they have a long history of using creativity in all aspects to communicate what the music will be like before the customer buys the album.
To start the assignment I watched a few interviews with Miles Davis, to get a feel for his character and the things he liked. Which lead me to look into his own artworks.
He also mentioned some of his idols like Picasso and Dali, he also mentioned some albums he wish his were like, which were Sting’s album Sting and Mick Jaggers called Primitive Cool. All the materials are in the end under research, if you are interested in watching it too.
1st brainstorm
But to start my product development I did a whole lot of different designs while I watched the interviews and listened to the single. These are a mix of notes of observations and designs.
Mood board
After my first brainstorming I had to narrow my ideas down so that I could start working on the overall design and details.
To do that I put together a mood board filled with pictures that represent my interpretation of Miles Davis’s personal style and character. In it I have put pictures of Miles Davis himself, his own art, art he was inspired by and art that represents his past like being a pimp and his addiction to heroin. I chose to incorporate his past because these are things that his fans will know and recognise they were also things he talked openly about, in an unashamed manner, which really says a lot about the vibe he gave “I don’t care what others think”.
This attitude is also clear in his naming of the album “So What”
2nd brainstorm
This leads me to my second brainstorm where I worked with composition, colour theory and abstraction.
Detail work
I now had a more refined idea of what I was going for and why. I wanted the initial focus to be on Miles Davis’s silhuet, which I wanted to achieve by using bright white centrally placed on a dark background, the next thing I wanted focus on was his signature in the top, which is made in a solid white as well, a white edge will lead the eye from one to the other.
And the final thing for people to notice will be the woman standing on the other side of Miles Davis, she is popping out of the picture by being red in contrast to the blue/black background.
I decided to try a few media’s to try different styles with the design and see what would give me the result I wanted. I tried with coloured pens and pencils, lead,watercolour, oil paints and acrylics.
Final product
My final product is made with acrylics on A4 watercolour paper. To create the 30 x 30 cm paper I needed I taped together my prepped watercolour paper, where after I cut it in the desired size.
I started with a background inspired by my previous acrylic piece and the watercolour piece.
The bent in the paper that came from taping the two pieces together was placed as a third of the paper, so I made the white line and Miles Davis figure where after I did the signature and white spiral.
After coming that far I did not want the album to look cheap, so I made a colour swatch to compare with the almost finished product.
I quickly decided to use a tad of black in my read colour to allow the white to be the primary contrast.
When the woman was painted in and the product picture was done, I got an idea when looking at the red colour swatch. I wanted it to be the actual case of the CD, and my final piece to be a sleeve over it. This would give a little more supprise and colour to the album, it would also make it seem more expensive and in a better quality because of the added packaging.
Understanding the artist
To get a feel for who Miles Davis was and what he liked I watched a few interviews with him. (linked below under research)
Research
Youtube recording of “So What” by Miles Davis 1959
Youtube interviews:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdbncehVoqk
Miles Davis’s personal art:
https://www.milesdavis.com/gallery/miles-artwork/
Examples of other albums from the same period:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=album+cover+1959&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiGpJipj8LeAhVLBsAKHYkACRAQ_AUIDigB&biw=1280&bih=610&dpr=1.5#imgrc=_
Analysis of “So What” by Miles Davis:
https://lkellunis.weebly.com/analysis-of-miles-davis-so-what.html