I was really happy to be approached by the band ‘You are them’ to design their album cover. I find it very inspiring to design for creative people because I can really let my fantasy free and I am always really excited to formalise someone else’s creative idea for them.
On this occasion the guidelines were the following: toddler wearing an over-sized suit and looking up at the large corporate buildings as they tower over him. The only colourful parts should be his skin and the sky.
Lucky me, sin city-style is one of my favourite ones anyway. For the background I used my own photo that I captured in New York. I guess, the longest part in the process was to clear the photo and make all the people, cars, billboards and other unnecessary details disappear. I wanted a really stern, lifeless and dream-like base opposite the innocent little boy.
At this point the whole picture looked like a nightmare instead. 😀 It was very flat and was ‘falling apart’. Then I pulled layers of freehand sketches and shading over it to give it more depth and to create a connection between the background and the toddler. I also wanted the album name (Famous first words – isn’t it genius?) to take part in the scene in a very organic way so I got rid of some windows and grabbed a virtual spray can.
Regarding the font for the band name, they already had the modern yin and yang symbol as their logo. I wanted to include it in the lettering and make a compact composition instead of the usual writing across the cover.
art from scratch 