OUGD406 - Study Task 01 - Secret 7" Introduction

For the first module briefing I am designing a 7" vinyl cover for the Secret 7" competition where designers from all over the country submit cover designs for seven songs chosen by the competition. 700 of the designs are chosen and then sold in the covers in secret so the buyer does not know what song they are purchasing and they do not know who deigned the cover.

In this task I designed two covers with an ambiguous meaning and a literal meaning. I chose to design covers for The Maccabees - Go and The rolling Stones - Dead Flowers. The other choices included The Chemical Brothers - Let Forever Be, Diana Ross & The Supremes - Reflections, The Maccabees - Go, Peter Gabriel - Sledgehammer, The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers, St Vincent - Digital Witness, Underworld - Born Slippy (Nuxx).

After sketching some ideas for a few of the tracks, I produced to of my designs digitally. For The Maccabees' track I used an ambiguous design that included a whistle. The whistle is representative of the word go, like a starting whistle in a race. I then wanted to include an exclamation mark to emphasise the whistle sound. This then developed into a pop art style design. This style worked well with the photography of the whistle and created a postmodernist style.

The second song I designed for was The Rolling Stones - Dead Flowers, for this song I decided to go for a literal meaning and illustrate a dead flower on a black background. The black background connotes the meaning of death. This design was however a little too simple and I prefer my other cover design.

This task demonstrated good techniques and mistakes made in designing a cover for when I produce a piece for my module briefing. When creating an obvious meaning it is important not to overcomplicate it, and the same is for the ambiguous meaning.