Taught by Su Hyun Ki

Blog Responses

• Week 1: What is design?

  • Class

    • What’s your favorite color? Why?

      

  • Assignments

  • Choose a design you like and analyze its system, hierarchy, typography, color system and use of negative space.

  

  Sharell Bryant’s Visual Language Week 1 Analysis of the album design for Crazy for You by Best Coast. Album Design by David Ranger.

  Slide 1 / References:

  • Album Bandcamp Link
  • Interview with Album Designer on the Cover from Pitchfork
  • Photos included from student’s physical copy of the album vinyl

  Tools used: Figma, Photoshop, Preview,

  https://jspaint.app/

  , whatfontis, whatthefont

  

  Slide 2 / Grid System:

  The grid organizes the cover into sections to highlight focal points in the album that represents the themes captured including California, sunshine, and the musician’s cat who shows up in many of the lyrics of the album.

  • Vertical:
    • I started by dividing the cover vertically in halves
    • The left hand side features cropped picture of a cat, one of the main focal points of the cover. The other half has more landscape that matches the style of the rest of the background with images the sun and palm trees
  • Horizontal
    • The top 2 / 3 of the cover are the sky while the bottom third is the ocean and grass with a horizon drawn as a black line in between them
  • Center/ Diagonal
    • The shadows from the palm trees on the right all lead to the top left corner
    • I also saw several triangles within this grid where key elements are highlighted fairly symmetrically, for example the cat’s head with the red sun

  

  Slide 3 / Hierarchy:

  As the debut album from the band, the band name is the largest element and serves as an introduction. The naming of the band as “Best Coast” and it’s homage to the west coast of the United States and particularly California is highlighted in several of the elements that are highlighted including in the postcard/map details, outline of the state, and symbolistic palm trees. The cat being scaled larger and in the middle of the ocean gives it a large focus, which was the main request from the band to the album’s designer on the cover.

  1. Band name: The top image we see is the band’s name across the type of the poster. The font is large and bold and includes a red drop shadow that matches the sun and inside has a map of California. The west coast imagery with the map immediately gives you a sense of the album’s themes.
  2. Cat Photo: Next in the foreground and the most out of place element is a cropped picture of a cat in the middle of the ocean. This photo along with the map gives the cover a collage type feeling on top of the drawings in the background.
  3. Palm Trees: There are three palm trees that take up much of the right hand side. Again symbolising the album’s themes of sunshine and california the shadows on the palm trees also draw the viewer’s eyes up to the top left of the cover again highlighting the top hierarchical element of the band name
  4. Red Sun: The next element is the sun, either rising or setting depending on your view but the designers choice to make the sun red and the sky yellow gives the essence of a transition of either the early morning or sunset and gives contrast to the blue of the water and green grass in the foreground of the cover.
  5. Tiny Cali Outline: The last element I highlighted is a small but special detail again adding an element of the album’s themes, the bottom half of the cat is cropped and highlighted into a white outline of the state of California

  

  Slide 4 / Typography:

  For typography, I referenced other parts of the album that compliment the cover. Interestingly this album cover does not feature the name of the album, but only the band name, and this lettering has details added by the designer of a postcard given to him by the band as inspiration (along with the photo of Snacks the cat).

  • Band Name Font
    • Couldn’t find exact typography match with font matcher
      • Closest match was for comic-like outlined fonts and all caps
      • Tried using Photoshop font match, whatfontis and whatthefont. Picked up typography within map details
  • Copy Text
    • Courier LT round Regular by Howard Kettle from Linotype found using whatthefont

  

  Slide 5: Color System:

  The album features a mix of vibrant and cooler colors. The colors have some texture to them on the album cover due to the drawing effect and the cream and yellow colors are used in other parts of the album design and packaging. The colors also compliment the photo of the orange cat featured on the cover, both adding more warmth especially when placed against the cool blue of the waves.

  • Yellow - Background: A warm yellow used as the background on the front of album cover and throughout vinyl packaging. The designer chose to represent the sky as yellow versus blue which makes the cover stand out to the eye, gives contrast to the blue waves, and also gives the feeling of intense sunshine to match the California sunshine-pop mood of the album’s musical and lyrical themes.
  • Red-Orange -  Primary: A vibrant red-orange color used as both the outline to the main lettering of the band’s name but also the sun in featured in the center-right of the cover. I described this as a primary color because of its contrast against the yellow. The designer’s choice to use this color matches both the color within the map/postcard effect but also gives the sun and intense warmth that matches the yellow sky.
  • Light Blue -  Secondary: A light blue that both matches the water in the postcard/map lettering but also the waves and water in the foreground on the bottom of the album cover. This along with the green brings in cooler colors in contrast to the bright yellow and red-orange and to me represent a calm and grounding that sets the scene for the summery vibes of the album.
  • Green - Secondary: A light to medium grassy green. This brings some more natural green color to the cover on the bottom right more as a foreground, as the artist chose to not color the palm trees.
  • Cream - Light: This light cream color is used both in the waves and also matches the color of land in the postcard/map detail. This color is a light match to the warm yellow background and they are used together in other parts of the vinyl packaging.
  • Black - Dark: It was difficult for me to find an exact color value for the dark color used on the album since it seems to be a black with some transparency to let the colors underneath shine through. This is used for copy text in the liner notes and tracklist of the back and inside of the album. Not having extreme white and black give the album cover some softness and ease which matches the laid back style of the music.

  

1. Watch this TED talk:  You are fluent in this language (and you don’t even know it). And Read this article: FastCo Design Good Taste is a Myth and write a 200-300 word blog post via Brightspace on your taste and what has inspired it.

• Week 2: Typography

  

  

• Week 3: Letterforms

  

  

  

• Week 4: Color

  

  Used: https://color.adobe.com/ tool for color wheel complementary color matching and also checks for accessibility with the colors

  

  Created using Adobe Illustrator

  https://editor.p5js.org/sharell.bryant/full/kHm936kjL

  

  https://editor.p5js.org/sharell.bryant/full/LlPygsIt8

  

  https://editor.p5js.org/sharell.bryant/full/8bItUggNP

  

• Week 5: Shape

  

  

• Week 6: Composition

  

  

• Week 7: Logo and Branding