I embarked on a creative design project starting with two vinyl records found in the discount bin: Loggins and Messina's Full Sail and Lorna Wright's Circle of Love. (Both original album covers are pictures at the right). The task at hand was to mash-up their distinct visual elements into something entirely new - a fictional band or artist identity, releasing a fictional album, that could reference visual. lyrical and emotional components of both LPs, but could successfully be expanded into a brand of it's own. This would come to include merchandise, tour posters, track lists and even the record hub stickers that go on each side of the vinyl.
I had periods of struggle while working on this project, partially because of the busy design of both albums, and because of the difference of where each artists was in the relation to the mainstream. I had heard of Loggins and Messina before, especially in relation to my yacht-rock listening uncle, but never Lorna Wright; and though I liked her songs better, she pulled me away from the obvious nautical theme and already collage-like visuals of Full Sail.
Using Adobe Illustrator, I combined the nautical themes from Full Sail with the soulful, disco-era aesthetic of Circle of Love, developing a hybrid style that became the foundation for my imagined band's visual identity. I incorporated elements that were relevant to the existing albums as well as fitting in with my personal design sensibilities - ending up focusing on working with physical collage. When I felt stuck with what to do to improve my draft of a mashup design, I separated elements out from the design, and printed them on a color printer at various sizes, so that I could cut them out and collage them manually. This, along with my choice to photograph my final designs in the real world and incorporate those images into the designs, gave the resulting album a tactile feel.
The project expanded naturally into a full brand identity system. I designed a collection of t-shirts featuring minimalistic graphics and geometric abstractions derived from the album artwork, playing off the collage feel I had begun to work with. The tour posters became an exciting canvas to further explore this visual language, where I could experiment while maintaining consistent brand elements across all materials.
Loggins & Messina's Full Sail, one of the two albums I was given to mash up.
Lorna Wright's Circle of Love, the other album I was given to work with.
The final front (left) and back (right) designs for my imagined LP, Sailing Right Along by the band The Ongoing Storm. Many iterations were created before deciding to lean into the "meta," trippy nature of my collage work by photographing it in its corresponding physical space (in this case, a dock near Navy Pier in Chicago). This helps the design feel grounded, while also intriguing the viewer to sort through the mix of physical and digital imagery.
My final pinup for critique of this design. I really liked how I was able to play with the many physical elements I created, and layer them in different ways in the vertical space!
