Album cover designs...

After having a think about what part of Digital Design I would like to work towards specializing in, I've decided to look into the idea of album cover artwork as that is something that has always interested me from the design itself to the story behind it. Here is one example that I came across that I feel personally inspired by...

This album artwork was created by Ian Wright in 2008 for T.I's album 'Paper Trail'.


Wright has used strips of random pieces of paper layered on top of each other to create this unique effect, which i think works extremely well and is different to the normal Hip hop album covers i.e studio photography, thuggy imagery or simple logo placement.


Not only is the image made up of layers, but I think the meaning behind it is too. Some think that it was created to represent T.I's legal troubles - scattered paper, maybe legal documents - authorities trying to piece together against him and yet he beat the case and rose from it. So it could be a representation of what he had over come and this being the result of it.


I love the way that Wright has used more of an arty, abstract look by creating the image by hand instead of on the computer. Apparently one of the ideas behind the artwork was to stray away from the digitalised view that every artist seems to be coming out with right now and go for something more natural.

 

“We didn’t want to just do a typical cover, especially for my sixth album,” T.I. told MTV via e-mail. “I wanted to try something a little more different. The illustration for Paper Trail pays an obvious homage to my rekindled affinity for writing my lyrics down as well as displays my commitment to keep my art slanted towards the abstract.” [ MTV.com ]