Album Cover Development #1 (Initial Thoughts)

Now that I have made my album choice, I must think about coming up with a few initial possible cover styles, that I can use in my interpretation of her 'Hounds of Love' album artwork.

This blog will tie in with the work featured in my brainstorm book, which is the book that will help me come up with concepts and ideas.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/eb/Hounds_of_love.jpg < image reference at this link.

As I said earlier, I would prefer to go down a different route to her existing album designs.
Many of her album designs consist of photographs/portraits. To me this is boring because it is overused.

My cover will be illustrative based, and I was thinking about experimenting with the idea of perhaps bringing in some element of movement, whilst working in an abstract/experimental theme.
A lot of contemporary album artwork uses surreal fashions in this age.

I would also like to use some form of natural elements in the cover, whether it be a small part, or a major part. I will experiment with this through my concepts and see.

I used my small brainstorm book to help with the initial development for the album, by focusing on her movement, using her existing music videos such as 'Wuthering Heights', 'Running Up That Hill', and 'Babooshka'.

By pausing the video multiple times mid-dance, I was able to get great screenshots of her standing in poses. Here are a few of the screenshots that I worked from.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wp43OdtAAkM < 3 images above referenced from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW3gKKiTvjs < image referenced from this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xckBwPdo1c < image referenced from this video.

 Below are some of rough sketches that I produced, solely focusing on her movement. I added some paint to remember what the colour of her clothing was at the time of the dance.

This sketch is situated on a square canvas, which is similar to the square canvas that artwork on an album would appear as.

I find creating these rough sketches helps spark my inspiration, in order to progress development.








Thomas.