Album Cover Design: Blazy.
Album cover for
Babinka is one of my favorite people to work with as she gives me a general idea and let's me run with it. There's something great to be said about creative freedom. We recently updated Babinka's wholesale menu with some changes on items and colors. Our original menu design was purple and looked about the same. Having expanded into CBD treats in 2017 though, I was asked to create a new menu for those products as well. I used elements from other projects we've worked on within this menu concept for branding consistency. The backgrounds of each of these menus were pulled from her donut labels followed by color theme changes for each one. I included the donut icons from her labels as well for use in these menus. The rest of the project was pretty straight-forward with updates to items and descriptions. I've left off her pricing for privacy purposes, you get the gist of it. I love exploring color in Babinka's projects as her treats and brand are so light-hearted and fun that there is a lot of room to play. I smile just seeing this stuff.
You can purchase Babinka Treats at dispensaries throughout the greater Los Angeles area, the Bay Area, and Central Texas (CBD only).
Thumbnail stage. I sent Blazy three different concepts for front art. We settled on one and would use portions of the front to help save time creating the back. This stage helps keeps the ideas simple to convey the overall look in a concise manner. Once we had a direction, I scaled up and went to work on a fully-inked illustration, fleshing out details, lighting, and depth. I had to make some adjustments in Photoshop after scanning to get the hand and dagger to fit into the square frame of an album cover.
After rearranging the hands, I laid down my base colors. This step went by rather quickly as I used a lot more shadow to help convey the idea of secrecy and espionage in this one. Adding shades and textures took place to add much more depth to the piece.
I love working on Typography and album covers are always a great time to explore different options within existing art. It's like an additional challenge having to create great type that will fit well with my hand drawn illustrations and then fit well within the constraints of a square frame. This title came together almost immediately which is a bit rare for me. Usually I find myself re-working and re-working. Sometime you get lucky and hit it solid pretty early in the process. The back art came together quickly in that we were using a part of the front art on the back to accompany a tracklist. I kept the final back design concise without a whole lot of busy designs or layouts.
Blazy's new album Cloak & Dagger can be purchased directly from Ruler Why Recordings.
In need of creative services, please contact me directly at:
blue73100@gmail.com
