Coal & DarkPopChris
A double album that combines the best of both artists on one record.
Layout | Typography | Print Production
Roles: Visual Designer | Art Director
Tools: Illustrator | Photoshop | InDesign
Timeframe: 3 months (January – March 2022)
Album Cover Design
Project Overview
Create a double album cover which features two distinct artists while visually communicating musical genres, themes, and styles. Artist team Coal and DarkPopChris are celebrated in South Africa yet unknown worldwide. As they tour, can an album cover generate more interest from potential new listeners?
The Sound
Coal’s lyrical themes deal with love, loss, and betrayal. It sounds layered, moody, and sparkly. DarkPopChris’ collaborations with Coal are layered with synth, guitars, and disco beats. Potential listeners enjoy genres like Goth Rock, Synthpop, Shoegaze, and Ambient.
Art Direction
I collected textures wet, cold, dark, rich, monochromatic, and glittery. Their portraits are layered with deep blue, black and gold. Thunderhouse Pro shows the grit, and Compendium captures the delicate and nuanced beauty of the vocals. Body set in Omnium staggers across the page over soft lines of Lamar Pen to convey emotional suspension of time.
Print Design
Production
I applied the album design to a pre-existing double album mockup, and printed a comp to test it out. I modified the dieline to add tolerance for the sleeve to close comfortably. I printed a high quality version, mounted it to paperboard, cut it to the dieline, then assembled the record for display during the class of ‘23 graduation exhibition at SCCA.