The Song
I have never been a fan of Gothic music – although this song was an exception. I chose this song as after listening to it, I realized that there was more than just lyrics and a catchy beat. The song had a certain ‘vibe’ which was eerie and mysterious – which I felt would be very interesting to work with.
Looking into the history of the song, I discovered who Bela actually was. A Hungarian actor who played an early role of count Dracula, Things quickly became aware to me that the lyrics ‘undead, undead, undead’ were describing the man himself.
The original covers massively influenced my redesign, most specifically the texture seen in both.
Vaughan Oliver – the man who designed the original covers of the song – clearly uses texture and tarnished effects to create a spooky and surrealist look within his work. After looking at some of his other designs such as ‘the drift’, I noticed how the use of dark yet contrasting colours were used to create a visually shocking and unnerving style.
- I created this research board for refrence as I began designing my own cover.
The Redesign
Moving forward with what I had discovered, I began experimenting with different ways to create texture. Playing around with water, broken glass and even rough surfaces, I was trying to find out which textures gave the most subtle yet scary atmosphere to convey the spookiness of the song itself.
Turning these abstract textures and concepts into resolved digital designs allowed me to see what the finished piece may look like. I created two separate designs to give myself more variety and a better opinion on what I thought looked best.
Although i liked how the design on the left lead you’re eye across the cover, I chose the other piece as I felt that it had a more clean, simple and visually impacting aesthetic. The design I chose also related to much more of my research, including the use of gold writing and a dark red blood-like texture.
Making the cover
To complete my project, I began to create a traditional hand-made version of my design. First of all, I cut a 12″ square piece of card to give me a solid base to work on. Next, I painted the board black roughly, leaving some of the cardboard visable to create a rough and well-used texture. After the paint was dry, I used red chalk pastels to make a brickwork pattern on the black surface – also achieving the symbolism of blood. Through this practical process, I decided that it would be best to slightly change my original design. I replaced the title of the song with a white water stained ‘coffin’ – aiming to visually describle Bela Lugosi instead of just conveying him through text.
Through self reflection, I like how I have left the composition simple and uncluttered – though I feel it may have also looked more resolved if the cover had the name of the song somewhere on it.