SOUND
Module
Think
Week
4 - 6
Tracks
The outcome for this brief was to create two stickers for a vinyl (for side a & b) and also a record sleeve for the Adelphi Contemporary Music Group. The ACMG is a contemporary music group from the University of Salford that specialises in abstract music.
INITIAL RESPONSES
INITIAL RESPONSES
Response to sound.
For this exercise we were given the task to create an image visualising one of the tracks on the ACMG Sampler EP. However, I feel like I generalised all of the tracks instead of focusing on one, I just believed ‘Lans” sounded more jumbled and eerie.
Track Name: Lans
My initial take on this sound piece was confusion. There is no guiding force, no predictable cadence - only unfiltered mayhem. The notes seem as though they are desperately trying to find their place, but instead, they spiral out in confusion, breaking apart and reforming in unpredictable ways. Some seem frantic, darting around, whilst others stretch and fade. The atmosphere feels thick with tension, as if standing in the eye of a storm where sound itself is rebelling. It appears it is disarray personified.
I wanted to create an unsettling feeling that evokes a sense of eerie, unrestrained chaos because the melody is not bound by structure and harmony has been abandoned. I wanted to create the effect of darkness swallowing the space ominously whilst the music notes twist erratically, as if blindly searching for a rhythm that doesn't exist. They drift without pattern, colliding, bending and dissolving into the void, creating visual discord. I created this effect by using charcoal to make the background, and then layered the music notes over the top in Photoshop to make this composition.
I had created these images some time ago but thought it would be fitting for this project. I created these images by using a very slow shutter speed and light flashes - every flash, the model moves. I also incorporated a single run of light from a torch. I thought these images fit the theme of eerie and surreal.
RESEARCH
Russel Mills
I decided to look into Russel Mills because he had already designed sleeves for vinyls. I was also drawn to his use of colour, or lack of, to create simple designs and let the texture speak for the design.
Chris Ashworth
In my search for artists to look into, I realised that I was only researching artists that had designed record sleeves. Whilst this is good to fully understand how the process works and to see their techniques, I decided to also look at artists to inspire my design. Chris Ashworth was one of the designers due to his use of textures and lack of colour. I was inspired by his compositions.
Furthermore, I looked into record sleeves as a whole instead of just who designed them. I wanted to gauge the layouts and how the elements are placed on the design.
EXPERIMENTATION
For this, I wanted to portray the sound of the tracks with movement by using paint. I wanted to capture the chaos and the surreal-ness.
I did this by using coloured acrylic paint at the top of the page and then added large amounts of black paint around the colour. Then I used a scraper to drag the paint in the directions I wanted and it revealed the colours beneath through the weak spots of black.
DEVELOPMENT
After playing around with the original, colourful designs I created, and trying to use them in my design, I quickly came to realise that the colours were too overpowering and distracting. But, I loved the texture of the paint. So, in Photoshop, I played around with different effects until I got these results, which highlight the texture and strokes.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENT
To develop the designs further, I started to layer them onto a larger canvas. I took elements from the different pieces and merged them together to create these designs. This is where I started to see Chris Ashworths influence as his work is based heavily on textures.
The design for the name was created quite quickly. I knew what I was aiming for. I didn’t want it to take up too much space, but still be bold enough to see and contrast against the design.
FINAL DEVELOPMENT
Once I had all the elements ready, I played around with different layout ideas. I found this surprisingly difficult as I hadn’t left myself much white space to work with, leading the logo and design credit on the back to be placed in a white box so the viewer can see it. It looks wrong, especially because everything else can be fit into a white space. It also diminishes the name of the vinyl as it doesn’t stand out too well against the design. This problem is the same for the labels on the vinyl. I hadn’t left much white space, leading to the stickers looking like a last minute desicion.
TEMPLATES
FINAL PIECE
EVALUATIVE SUMMARY
For this project, we were asked to respond visually to the four abstract audio tracts from the Adelphi Contemporary Music Group - each one challenging in its lack of rhythm, structure or clear narrative. So, instead of what I heard, I focused on translating the raw emotion and texture of the sound into a physical process.
Because I didn’t do as much research in the last project as I would have liked, I covered a broader range of artists. I not only looked at artists who specialise in vinyl sleeve design such as Russell Mills, who I originally was inspired by for his lack of colour and textures, but I also looked at Chris Ashworth. I had known about Chris Ashworth since starting University as he was one of the first artists I discovered. I thought his input on my designs would be great for this project as I was leaning heavily into texture. I also looked into vinyls, not the artists, as a broader research, to help understand the layouts and placements of elements.
My initial experiments involved acrylic paint. I used primary colours mainly and then surrounded them in large amounts of black paint, hiding the colours beneath. then using a scraper tool, I pulled the paint down the page in different patterns. This created the colour to come through the weaker, thinner points of the black paint.
As much as I loved the technique, I thought the colour was too overpowering and I wouldn’t be able to put type over the top. So, I used photoshop to take away the colour and emphasise the texture. This refined the process into a series of black and white images.
Once I was happy with the development, I decided to take it a step further and combine some of the elements together. I picked out my favourite points of each composition and created a new piece specifically for the front and back of the vinyl sleeve.
Then the typography. For the title, ‘Notation to Notation’, I knew what I wanted to do. I didn’t really experiment within this necessity. I was too stubborn as I had an image of what I thought it would look like in my mind. Looking back now, I should’ve put more time into the title and the other written elements.
I didn’t have enough white space around my design making the overall look very crowded and busy. The logo and design credit had to be put in a white box in order for it to be seen, which stood out like a sore thumb. The title, though red and should contrast, didn’t contrast enough. It is hard to see the right side of the title as there is too much going on around it.
However, I do think the final piece looks good, it just needed refining.