A cover design I did for a a colleague in John Lewis.

Informed by a series of interviews conducted as to what his album represents. He wanted his work and his cover to represent power, masculinity and the struggle. He told me that this was the best work that he had ever done.

 

We started out with a photoshoot in various places I had in mind. 

I generated a few images, some I found a little tacky but he seemed to really like:

My favourite of the pack was his least favourite. This was the image I wanted to use. In retrospect, side shot doesn't signify power as much as a frontal one:

Plus he wanted to be topless:

I also generated a conceptual idea based on the album title 'Phenomena' using photography to create a moon phase visual. 

The idea was rejected but I did enjoy the production and just wanted to include it.

He wanted a more photographic album cover.

He chose a favourite photo and I continued to generate a few ideas with a creative block:

They got a little out of hand. So I decided to focus on the typography.

The idea behind the type is architecture. I wanted to represent a progression in the typography like it was being built as opposed to growing organically.

There are elements that make it look sort of Sci-fi but he didn't seem to have a problem with that. 

Using a little inspiration from Herbie Hancock's Inventions and Dimensions cover.

He didn't want the photograph to be too tampered with and he wanted his name to be very large on the front cover. I used the blue tone to match the sky in the photo to signify 2 things:

1. A new birth. The colour of the sky represents to me a new day. A new morning.

2. Uniqueness. Blue is also natures rarest colour. Something I read on colour theory.