Prince’s album 1999’s hit song 1999 writes party like its 1999 even though it was written in 1982. It was about partying like 1999 because in 2000 the y2k would happen where all technology would glitch and create a computer induced apocalypse. The y2k scare and the lack of clarity of what it entailed people stocked up on arms, generators, food and water.
Its something that seems irrational to us because we didn’t live in that time but it was very real back then.
I wanted my album cover to represent that. In the end I did not reach my goal, but nonetheless the final product is beautiful.
Prince Album Cover | Case Study
For this project I created a logo for a tea brand and a can design. I also made motion graphic social ads, guerilla advertisement, a billboard, and a vehicle wrap.
Tongue Tied Tea’s target audience are movie lovers. For the brand and campaign, I wanted hard contrasts and cinematic themed graphics.
On every can there is a tongue twister on the top, so the viewer can interact with the brand and do something brain working while drinking.
We wanted to spotlight the brand rather than the tea flavor because the brand hasn’t gotten enough spotlight, and we want the viewer to boldly know who is making this amazing tea.
Prince’s album 1999’s hit song 1999 writes party like its 1999 even though it was written in 1982. It was about partying like 1999 because in 2000 the y2k would happen where all technology would glitch and create a computer induced apocalypse. The y2k scare and the lack of clarity of what it entailed people stocked up on arms, generators, food and water.
Its something that seems irrational to us because we didn’t live in that time but it was very real back then.
I wanted my album cover to represent that. In the end I did not reach my goal, but nonetheless the final product is beautiful.
PRINCE ALBUM
WHY THIS ALBUM
For this album, I wanted teenagers to want to pick up this album because it was so important to that time, and is still such an amazing album. It’s an album that teenagers these days could easily rock out to if the cover was maybe more appealing to them. I could see skaters skateboarding to this album, at the park.
WHO IS PRINCE
Prince is an icon, a musician, and an artist. Prince is someone who could play any instrument that they pick up. They are an artist of style that defied gender and social norms. To learn more click here.
RUNNER UPS
My other choices were:
Madonna - Madonna
The Grateful Dead - Anthem of the Sun
Big K.R.I.T. - Cadilliactia
Girl in Red - Chapter 1
Bastille - Give me the Future
MOODBOARD
I wanted to approach this with a psychedelic poster style vibe. I thought that it would portray the album right and reach out to a more youthful audience.
SKETCHES
Out of my 40 sketches these are the ones that were my favorites.
When I am not restricted to the time we have in school to do an album cover, with deadlines, I will one day create the red corvette album cover. I aspire to get to that day eventually.
As you already know this is the one I chose. The closest runner up was the red corvette sketch soaring through time and space. Why I didn’t choose it was even if it was a song in the album, I wanted teen listeners to know who Prince was, not just listen to the album.
REFERENCES
ROUGH DRAFT
For the rough draft I just put everything I had sketched out digitally. I just wanted it from paper to digital, only then could I refine it and make it beautiful.
The color scheme of this album I wanted to be purples because of the album but also the lights at the shows that Prince played at.
SECOND REVISION
Now that I gathered all of my thoughts on paper I was able to make progress. My biggest struggle here was that I didn’t know how to make it feel not as much as flat design, and rather put more psychedelic poster into it. I also didn’t want it looking like Medusa. I also needed to find a way to make the Prince look better and the 1999 stand out more.
FINAL REVISION (for now)
I never like saying “final, final’’ because there is almost always room for improvement. There is always something you can tweak to make it more appealing or something that could add more to the whole of the piece.
