Case in point: I recently had the opportunity to design and develop the CD package for Milwaukee's psych pop craftsmen, Trolley. Long time friend, Paul Wall, called on my services some months ago and asked if I'd be interested in helping them out with some design solutions regarding their new record. I was ready to go as I had just wrapped up work for the Crappy Dracula LP. Paul was generous enough to let me carry the design to the far reaches of my imagination. The band didn't really have any stipulations as far as direction went. Although, they weren't interested in portraying any of their pictures in the layout. Anyone in a band with a revolving door policy understands this. The minute your record comes out with the cover splashed with everyones faces, the bass player calls it quits.
This project couldn't have come at a perfect time. I was exploring this notion that I created that combined an art nouveau style with an a rigid/stiff ornamental modern feel. It was basically a modernized version of the psychedelic poster movement operating in a digital landscape. The only rules that I followed was that it had to be symmetrical and intricate, meaning that the contract between shapes and sizes were exaggerated, yet controlled. It was as if each element was a puzzle piece made to fit precisely in each nook and cranny. I called it neo-nouveau. Or faux nouveau. Another sliver of inspiration came in the form of two animations that I was previously exposed to.
1: Canadian short animation film at Oddball screening.
Oddball is a film archive space in the Mission District of San Francisco. My girlfriend was working as an intern there for several months digitalizing a wide variety of long lost films and footage. Every once in awhile, they will have a theme night showing a series of films that they had in their possession. The first one that I was exposed to was an event where they showed a plethora of long lost canadian short animations from the 60's and 70's. It was a bizarre experience. First of all, you had to walk up these long dark stairwells in order to get into the warehouse space where they kept all of their stock. After paying ten dollars to the guy at the top of the stairs, you walked another 100 feet or so through these gigantic shelves holding hundreds and hundreds of film reels. In the back, 20 or so people sat in lawn chairs starring at a white sheet hung from the high ceiling that projected the weirdest cartoons known to man. The projector in the back whirled and squeaked as the reel spun out a technicolor splash of sight and sound. Most of the animations that they played seemed like demo reels from amateur artists. It was definitely on the psychedelic side which conjured up memories of watching old "school house rock" specials. There was one film in particular that I focused on. What it lacked in making any sense, it made up for in a visual array of wild shapes morphing into one another while a barrage of vibrant colors exploding on the screen. As I sat there being subjected to the insanity laid out in front of me, I made a mental note. "This would make a really great record cover if it was more organized."
2: Sesame Street counting pinball.
I'm not sure how many people will remember this, but Sesame Street had this little segment where a pinball would roll through a board, fall down holes, sidewind down a curvy ramps and ultimately finish with a number relevant to how many times the ball hit a pin or object. It reeked of that distinctive 70's animation style. I had forgotten all about it until I happened to stumble upon it one day surfing youtube. It really blew my mind and soon brought me back to the days of sitting on our living room floor with a bowl of Apple Jacks watching the show. It's kind of interesting that when I was a kid, all it was to me was a barrage of silly colors and non sensical fun. It didn't mean much. It wasn't until I got older and more mature in my outlook towards design, that I fully understood this animations importance. Especially now that I look to the past for inspiration. When sketching out ideas for this Trolley project, I immediately looked to this short animation sequence for inspiration.
I began the project by picking out a random number of objects to work with. These objects would be utilized in a way similar to puzzle pieces. But my intent wasn't to make everything fit necessarily. Typography became an important factor here because many of the shapes derived from the "Aimov" typeface collection. I was using these letters less as text and more as abstract shapes to manipulate and mold. There were some other creatives that I threw in for good measure as well such as the bubbles and teardrop elements. Because symmetry was going to play an important part in this composition, creating only one side of the layout was necessary. Then it was just a matter or duplicating it, flipping it, and connecting it in the middle. Once I had the general outline of the symmetrical graphic set up, connecting the two and finessing a variety of spaces was key in making it work. The biggest challenge was trying to figure out what to do about the foreground space. My original thought was to simply use a photograph of the band in the middle, but one of the requirements was to avoid using any photography. I had this big wide open square to work with and no ideas to fill it with.
It wasn't until I bought a Velvet Underground book did the inspiration strike. I have always admired the cover for the 'Loaded' record and the psychedelic smoke coming from the subway tunnel gave me the idea to let whatever graphic I used in the empty square, to transcend it's boundaries and bleed into the rest of the composition. Then I saw the cover for the 'Squeeze' record and admired the handicraft of the cloud motif. I sort of stole the cloud idea from this and added my own twist. Once I had that laid out, the rest of it came naturally. It had even opened up some new doors that lead to me revisiting a lot of what I had already created to better match this new direction. For a layout that was somewhat erratic, I decided to go with a simpler color scheme to better enhance the overall appearance. I felt that if I had used a wide variety of color, the message would be lost in a sea of technicolor chaos. I stuck with three main colors and used variances within that triad to highlight a few segments here and there. But for the most part everything was pretty rooted in this pink and purple concept. As a finishing touch I supplemented the whole thing in front of a subtle brown paper texture. The brown tint real worked well with the pink and purple color scheme.
As a bonus, (and because I like to go beyond what is merely expected of me), I turned the CD package into a poster. The elements were already there so it was just a matter of fitting it into a different format.
