Sqwink Album Art Blog

Yeah, this is a rather mixed-up title for a kind of strange review…well, more like an album art face-off. The image below shows the new Get Cape Wear Cape Fly CD Cover for Searching for the Hows and Whys.

Hmmm, weird, yes—but I’ve seen something similar before. The album Voices of Animals and Men by The Young Knives has very similar charactaristics, such as the typographic placement and ‘hollow’ photography (below).

So, I’m thinking, is the album art for Searching for the Hows and Whys a direct inspiration from the Young Knives sleeve? I don’t know. If anyone has an insight on this, please leave a comment.

As a side-note, I do like both of these designs—both just ooze with an alternative-music vibe, and even though they’ve been professionally designed, they also look amateurish—as part of the styling.

Like I said, this isn’t really a review, more of an observation of two similarly-styled CD Covers. While i’m on the subject of The Young Knives, you may want to read my review of the artwork for their single Terra Firma.

I looked on the iTunes Store today, and noticed a couple of new album covers with two distinct, poler opposite approaches to their album art.

Firstly, I saw the sleeve for I want you to know that there is always hope by I Was A Cub Scout (below), and remembered thinking how unimaginative and boring it was—yet I do like some of their creative music!

Second, I stumbled across the album artwork for The Feelings’ Join With US album, despite the fact I’m not a fan of their music (below), I was still rather impressed with their album cover (I’m not saying that I should like the music of a band to like their album art—I’m just merely pointing out the irony here, lol). There’s clearly been a lot of thought put into this artwork; it’s commendable that some bands clearly acknowledge the importance of this visual medium.

The feeling and I Was A Cub Scout are relatively new bands, and, as can be seen in the images, have vastly different aspirations when it comes to marketing their music. Well done to The Feeling, woe to the Scouts!

This is the latest album art I have done for a band named Undiscovered, an Idie/Rock band from Northern England. The image below shows the four pages of the CD Booklet:

The music for this album is based around love and hurt. They approached me with a basic idea of what they wanted—with the ‘upside-down’ heart being the centre-piece of the entire design.

You can also view the complete design of the CD album artwork on my portfolio on the main Sqwink site. If you like this album art, or have a positive/negetive opinion on it, please feel free to leave a comment.

Post by Andrew Kelsall BA, Sqwink Music CD Design