Sqwink Album Art Blog

I’m not saying that CD cover designs should convey an accurate visual rendition of a particular tracks’ lyrics, but the new Young Knives single sleeve has bemused me.

These are the lyrics to the chorus:

fake rabbit real snake
terra firma, terra firma
fake rabbit real snake
terra firma, terra firma

…all well and fine…but why on Earth - or Terra Firma, as the case may be, has the designer produced an image of a real rabbit and real snake?

It’s as though this is how the design brief went:

Young Knives: Hay Mr. Graphic Designer, please design our new CD cover for Terra Firma.
Designer: Yeah, I can see it’s got something to do with snakes and rabbits. I’ll get straight on it.

I think this design is a perfect example of lack of communication of what a design should be all about, as I see it anyway. It’s not a bad design, just a misguided one! It reminds me of Interpol’s new album cover for ‘Our Love to Admire’ [read my review here]…I hope this ‘National Geographic’ style isn’t becoming a design trend.

So, are the Young Knives fakes? No…but the rabbit should be!

In a rare outburst not-becoming of my usual CD Cover Reviews, I AM ABSOLUTELY OUTRAGED at Hard-Fi’s explanation of their new Album Cover Art for ‘Once Upon A Time in the West:

“Just like we did with our debut album, we wanted to break the rules,” says frontman and songwriter Richard Archer. “The significance of album covers in general is becoming little more than a centimeter square on an i-pod screen, or at best a 10cm CD. We don’t need some airbrushed band shot just because it might be expected,” he adds. “… This is about the music.”

Well that’s all well and good, but if this is the case, why have Hard-Fi actually blatantly contradicted themselves and have actually gone to great expense to have some album art designed. “It’s not a design” you may say—yet the purpose of this post is to put this initial misconception to rest.

I-m running out of time, so the rest of this post will be short, simple - but straight to the point with pictures…Yippee!
The image below shows the actual Hard-Fi CD Cover - alledgedly “undesigned”:

However, there’s a lot going on here design-wise. In a nut-shell, I have numbered the main points from 1-5 as follows:

AS CAN BE SEEN IN THE NEXT IMAGE, IF THERE WAS NO DESIGN, THE CD SLEEVE WOULD LOOK SOMETHING LIKE THIS:

Nearly there…on a final note…

I think I’ve proved my case. Please leave you’re thoughts and questions on this one…

Article by Andrew Kelsall BA, Sqwink Design

I’ve been an Interpol fan ever since their last album “Antics”. Lately, I heard some tracks from their latest album ‘Our Love to Admire” on BBC Radio 1’s Zane Lowe show. Now that I’ve seen the new Interpol album cover, I knew it was time for another CD album cover review…

My initial reaction was two-fold; formed by two questions—where is Interpols’ ‘Trade Mark’ colours (Red & Black)—and what’s the image all about?

After musing on these thoughts for a while I’ve arrived at a conclusion. Firstly—and despite my initial reaction, why do Interpol ‘have’ to use there distinct colours? They don’t. The very ‘branded’ album cover design (and subsequent single releases from it) for “Antics” worked really well for Interpol, matching their appearance and music-style—but this is new day and a new album.

As for my other reason—what’s that image all about—er, I don’t really know, yet I have come to an opinion that the whole thing works. This CD cover art utilises a concept I shall aptly coin ‘image-out-of-context’. Huh? This photograph of lions would be well-suited and inconspicuous in a book about the African Safari or some Wildlife Journal, but as it’s got Interpols’ branding stamped on it, so, a new meaning (or weight) has derived from the photo.

For example, an image of a Green Sprout on a Grocery Store wall would be acceptable, incontrovertible and appropriate. Stick that same Sprout image on a Billboard along side the name ‘George W. Bush’—and well, you’ve got controversy! So what the designer has [cleverly] done is created a CD Cover design that engages the viewer—and it’s all done not with the photo, but the Interpol Logo. It is this logo that steers the rationale of the imagery into subjective places. The ‘Safari-style’ image does work, but so would so many other images from a variety of genres that would ’suit the title’ Our Love to Admire.

Basically, this CD Cover appears to be all about context, rather than content. The context and content of any CD Cover is very important—and music listeners can be influence by what they see on CD Designs. We now live in a digital age whereby the CD Sleeve has become more important that the inner-pages of printed CD jewel case booklets, as at least 80% of music is downloaded rather than physically purchased. That little square of photography and graphics or “CD Cover” that appears in iTunes—and now the iPhone (as well as other programs and devices) is now the representation of the music for most listeners.

To summerise, I don’t think in any sense that this is a terrific CD Cover, however—and adversely—it’s a great effort, as well as thought-provoking and quite refreshing. The album is named ‘Our Love to Admire’; how this title relates to the imagery is subjective, but as a side-note: Do the lions look as though they actually love the creature they’re about the maul? Anyway, from a sheer impact point-of-view, a 7/10 mark seems justifiable.
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Review by Andrew Kelsall, Sqwink Design