Album Design

I love creating album designs, and over the years I’ve been able to design the albums of some truly excellent musicians. I link to each of the albums in the entries below, so you can check out their music for yourself. I highly recommend taking the time to explore some of these wonderful artists.

There are several designs in this post.
Please click the ‘continue reading’ link below to see all those included.

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Dirty Dialogues
by Anna Xambó, Jon.Ogara, and the Dirty Electronics Ensemble

A Consequence In Three Parts by The Johnny Hunter Quartet

Live in Newcastle by Anton Hunter

Reality Rounds by Alex Dowling

modules by exclusiveOR (Sam Pluta and Jeff Snyder)

Two Live Sets by Sam Pluta and Peter Evans

Wet Ink: 20

Vaqería
a digital release album by Mauricio Pauly and Richard Knight
Porto has several places where you can get old comics. While making the art for this album I was looking at a few old books that I’ve bought so far while here: a western themed one, a Fantasma Especial (that has great colors!), and one that isn’t an old comic but is grounded in that aesthetic, Samplerman . The music on Vaquería is absurd and fun about esoteric stuff (I think). Listen, this all goes together.

Anton Hunter – Article XI
This design was done free-hand and hand-stitched. That I could pull off the combination of those two things really surprised me, since I’ve never really stitched anything before! Article XI of the European Convention of Human Rights protects freedom of assembly, so making this image in thread (a thing that binds) made sense to me. Also having the ability to stitch is very empowering; to mend one’s own clothes, and more generally speaking to fix the things in your life is something we should aim to be able to do. I tried putting some of that salt of the earth positivity in this.
and this is the back

Madwort Saxophone Quartet – Live at Hundred Years Gallery
I collaborated on this design with saxophonist/printmaker Cath Roberts. I had done the flowers initially and passed the block off to Cath to add more of an edge with the brambles. Then Cath printed them all up by hand as well. They look fantastic!

Section 48 – Extended Play
This is a project by Anthony Hindley which had a Mr. Bungle feel as well as a clown theme.

^ cover

^ what you see on the left when you open up the case: Paper doll!

de type inconnu – We Make Ourselves […] By Making Each Other […]
I had made this image/text in a sketchbook in 2013 and then in 2016 PA and Sylvain came upon it when in search of a cover to their album. I’m paraphrasing, but they said something to the effect that the text reflected perfectly what the music is about.

Tiger for a Goju Ryu dojo
A dojo contacted me to make a design for their t-shirts, explaining the significance of the tiger in their tradition.

Silence Blossoms – Silence Blossoms
As an alternative to the physical CD of their album, I also made a poster (that comes with a download code for the album). I used stippling to create the explorer/spaceman in the image, and used micron 0.3 to 0.8 pens to do it. Take a closer, zoomed in look. It’ll be worth it!

Silence Blossoms – Silence Blossoms
I made 300 of these by hand! Each one linocut print with hand-painted red ‘atmosphere’, and some with hand-painted silver ‘spaceman’

The inserts look pretty good too!
I made the originals using watercolors and ink

And here I’m mentioned in a little Swedish press. It translates to: “Angela Guytons pictures also have an important function in the musical context” “It (Silence Blossoms) is art-music, music which is art”

Here’s another interview in soundofmusic.nu where Hanna mentions the artwork. I don’t speak Swedish so I’ve used google translate–this is what it spit back out at me: It is truly a special disc, it’s like a book with various sound images. Feels great fun. We have worked very closely with the artist Angela Guyton. She started to make our posters when we were on tour for three years ago. She is a member of the group and has really illustrated the music nicely.

ink drawing on paper
printed as 6″x 8″ 400gsm postcards

Johnny Hunter Quartet – Appropriations
ink drawing on paper
I’ve left the template layer on so you can see how it folds over.

Silence Blossoms – Lady White single
ink drawing on paper
printed as 6″x 8″ 400gsm postcards

Amp/Al from Richard Craig
Linocut prints, clay, and ink
album concept and execution
90 handmade
Here’s a  mention of it in an interview Richard gave in the Glasgow Herald. In the last paragraph: AMP/AI picks up on that DIY aesthetic. It’s a limited edition of 90, each case hand-decorated with clay and ink by the Manchester-based artist Angela Guyton. The clay, Craig explains, is supposed to fall off in time, reflecting the disc’s shattering final tracks.

Anton Hunter Trio
Linocut print
album art
50 handmade

Silence Blossoms – Live In Sweden 
House paint, ink and conte on canvas
album wrap-around & tape face

Skamel
Ink on paper/photoshop
back and cover wrap-around / inside panel with CD face

This is the back and the cover (its a wrap around image)

and this is what you see when you open the package

A Greater Horror EP
Acrylic on cellulose acetate
back and cover / inside panels

Again, this is the back and the cover.

And what you see when you open the package.

HAQ – Walking Walking Falling
paint and wood/photograph
cover and insert

This is the cover (above).

And this is the insert.

HAQ – In Free Fall (web only release)
animation/ink on paper

Reeling by Sean Gregory
posters for a play
tape and acrylic

Atemnt – defines movement as
house paint on canvas
cover and back

The Noise Upstairs – The Best of Noise (vol. 1)
house paint on canvas
cover and back

Ohvaur
paint and ink/photography

Wolf Scarers – Throat
house paint, plaster, and ink on canvas

Rodrigo Constanzo and P.A. Tremblay – Drum & Bass and the Horse You Rode in On
silkscreen
50 handmade

Rodrigo Constanzo, Ray Evanoff, and Ian Harrison – 16 Figures
linoleum cut block print
50 handmade

Aaargh! EP (web only release)
linoleum block print (excluding text)

Rodrigo Constanzo
book/album cover
silkscreen
50 handmade

Rodrigo Constanzo – The Beatles White Album
linoleum block print
50 handmade