Design Practice: Secret 7

The brief

"We take 7 tracks from 7 of the best-known musicians around and press each one 100 times to 7” vinyl. We then invite creatives from around the world to interpret the tracks in their own style for every 7”. 700 sleeves are exhibited and then sold for £50 apiece. You don't know who created the sleeve, or even which song it's for, until you have parted with your cash - the secret lies within."

Chosen track:

The reference to intravenous drug use is being communicated in this track, the dead flowers can be symbolic for both heroin use (dead poppies) and a broken relationship. Another interpretation for the track, which I have decided will inform the concept is that of woman (little susie) who is being portrayed as someone of a higher class than the narrator;
"Well when you're sitting there in your silk upholstered chair, talkin' to some rich folk that you know, well I hope you won't see me in my ragged company" the protagonist is being portrayed as the one with the power.

"Well, you know I could never be alone
Take me down little Susie, take me down
I know you think you're the queen of the underground
And you can send me dead flowers every morning
Send me dead flowers by the mail
Send me dead flowers to my wedding
And I won't forget to put roses on your grave
Well when you're sitting back in your rose pink Cadillac
Making bets on Kentucky Derby Day
Ah, I'll be in my basement room with a needle and a spoon
And another girl to take my pain away"

Concept

The main protagonist in the song is the woman, she is being portrayed as the one with the power, therefore making her more inferior than the rest. In the song, they see the protaginist for what she really is beneath her beauty, someone who sees themself for much more than they are. There is a playful and taunting attitude within the song; the ‘dead flowers’ are symbolic for both a broken relationship and heorin (dead poppies). I want to design something that combines something beautiful, with something withering away, to represent the woman who is being talked about.

Ideas

With the concept, my idea is to create an image of empowerment and beauty, yet there still remains the remorse and decay of something that isn't as great as it seems. I want to combine different techniques, I quite like the idea of combining a harsh line drawing, with soft watercolour.

I started to sketch some rough silhouettes style faces with pen, and found that I quite liked the effect this created. This is something to consider when developing my actual design.

I wanted to experiment with the ideas of combining beauty and decay, and as the main protagonist is being compared to a queen, I thought about designing a hand rendered style silhouette/image with a floral crown, only that the decaying beauty will be represented by using wilting flowers for the imagery. My intentions to create a more hand rendered style of design is because the existing rolling stones covers are different to this sort of style so I wanted to create something slightly different than their usual album artwork. I knew I wanted to create this idea instantly, as it has a good concept and relates to the meaning of the song, and not something that is too obvious.

Sketch in pencil, refined with fine liner; I have kept the fineliner drawing very loose and free.

Final pen drawing to develop.

For the floral crown idea I wanted to create a loose composition, contrasting from the pen drawing. Watercolour would be the best medium to use for this as I can create a wash with more concentrated colours in certain areas, rather than a block colour for each petal.

Inspiration for floral design

For the floral design, the colour palette needs to consist of darker hues and muted tones, rather than pretty pastel colours or bright shades of a standard flower.

Choosing some of the darker, muted tones that can represent the flowers during decay stage I created these loose, wilting watercolour flowers to scan in and manipulate.

I have cropped each flower and duplicated each several times and positioned each layer in a composition that sits above the drawing. This was going to be the final design, keeping it simple and having just the illustration central, however I don't think that it looks refined enough yet.

On illustrator I played around with my tablet, and freehand drew over the floral crown using the pen tool, I ended up really liking the effect that it gave, as it allowed the overall design to flow slightly better.