Illustrating an album cover

After seeing the book cover I did for the Visual Skills module (pictured), my brother asked me if I would illustrate the cover of his band's EP. I said yes, as long as he paid me (gotta make a living), and as long as I could fit it around uni work.

Having listened to his band, Frontier, which is sort of cliche pop rock (he described it as alt rock) - a lot of love songs - my first thoughts were character-based, as that's what I'm into, and I thought portraying a relationship fitted the theme of the band. One cover that jumped to mind immediately was the cover for Like Clockwork by Queens of the Stone Age, illustrated by Boneface, one of my favourite illustrators.

The album is also alt rock, with a similar visual signature to mine in some ways. I did have a look through my iTunes at other similarly genred bands to see what kinds of things they have as their album covers, and the majority are photographic, or if illustrated, not as graphic as the QOTSA cover. However, another one that jumped to my mind (and one of my brother's bandmates mind) was Homesick by A Day to Remember by Dan Mumford. This also has very cool, dark colours, which also seems to be a theme on rock album covers.

The last artist I thought of was Jamie Hewlett, as obviously he is very character based, having created a whole fictional band. However, I dismissed Hewlett for inspiration as I don't think his visual signature is really appropriate for Frontier.

After a Skype conversation with my brother, he confirmed my initial thinking about a character based romantic cover, but gave me some notes from his bandmate, who wanted a spacey theme, with celestial figures. His bandmate also gave me some images from an artist (who he couldn't remember the name of) that was the sort of thing he liked.

So based on this info I did him some quick roughs (for free because he is my brother):

 Zach (the bandmate) did want the hands reaching out to each other to be part of the piece, and originally suggested full figures, but I personally think it works better with just the head and torso, and I can get more detail in that way, as album covers are fairly small. It'll grab your attention more I think if the content of the image is larger.

The second image, I thought in the end might actually be too sexual for the vibe they're going for, so I scrapped that one. It's also a bit more suitable to their music, as their songs are pretty cliche - about lost love and unrequited love and break ups yadda yadda. My brother reminded me constantly that he has nothing to do with the lyrics.


 Anyway, I thought this idea worked best, particularly if I actually don't include their faces - it's less personal that way and suits an album cover more - there's still a narrative element there but not too much, so you still focus on the band rather than the artwork.

The general consensus from the band is that this is the one they want to expand on, but I'm having another Skype call with my brother to discuss feedback further, so we shall see.








And although this is my brother rather than an actual client, it's useful to have my first semi-professional brief to work to with actual people involved who can give me feedback on my ideas rather than a sheet of paper, and to go through the whole development process with more input.