Computers as Co-Creators

MA Research 2023

Album Cover Design / Branding / Print Design

Challenge

As a music lover, I noticed the repetitive and often formulaic album cover artwork and, as a designer, I was hearing all about how technology cannot work with art and will take over. Through this project, I wanted to find a way that designers could use technology to create fresh, unique cover art for musicians to stand out in the crowded industry. The problem became about exploring the intersection between human intention and computational random, and how this can effectively communicate messages/feelings from a given song.

Solution

After initially trying AI image generation, resulting in lacklustre, meaningless outcomes, creative coding came to the forefront. By learning JavaScript with the use of p5.js, I was able to work at the very crossover of art and technology, control and lack of, to create meaningful artwork that conveyed messages about the given songs.

Outcomes for Jorja Smith’s ‘Little Things’, an upbeat song about walking into a party and seeing someone you like

By adopting a digital collage technique, I was able to use the computer to build up intended visuals in a randomised way.

For the first song, ‘Calm Down’ by Rema, the intention was to create an abstract silhouette of African clothing to echo the African themes in the song. This was further highlighted through the use of patterns inspired by African textiles that were all generated with code. By using random in colour choices and parameters, as well as ‘if’ statements, each outcome was different yet still maintained the theme.

The second (using the song ‘Little Things’ by Jorja Smith) was a little more experimental, with the intention being hazy, nightclub-esque visuals. Random was used a lot more here, and so only a colour palette and patterns were specifically designed.

There were many unexpected results that may not have come about from pure human intention alone. This research also opened up about the possibility of using creative coding for branding and overall visual identity, with each image being different but visually cohesive - artists could create unique album covers for each purchase, the images could also be used for a whole campaign, or even just used for merchandise.

Result

Selected outcomes for ‘Calm Down’ by Rema

Alongside the final artworks, a 28-page booklet was designed and printed, which was presented with the outcomes.

The aim of this booklet was to be informative and clear, providing some of the background and process behind the results. A simple, consistent layout was used, with images displayed throughout of the design process, as well as alternative outcomes for both songs.