Author Archives: Simon Page

Album Cover Artwork Inspiration

Over the years there’s been lots inspirational artwork created for album covers and with this post I am going to highlight a few of my all time favourite designs as well as introduce my new series of “Musically Inspired Album Covers”.

Digital downloads are unfortunately taking away more and more sales from physical CDs which is a shame as you really lose out on seeing the awesome artwork associated. I personally try and buy a physical version of the album whenever I see a good design but I sadly think this might well be a dying trend, mainly due to the convenience of applications like iTunes.

The trend of having interesting artwork for album covers obviously started way before digital downloads and, like magazine covers, were a way of catching someone’s eye for them to want to find out more about the music or potentially make a purchase there and then. This today is not the case as much more music is simple purchased out of hearing the music or recommendation / word of mouth. However recently it looks like there has been a re-emergence in bands wanting to have more exciting and interesting album cover art – which is great as I would hate to see this kind of art dwindle.

My Musically Inspired Album Covers Series

This year I have been asked to create more and more album covers, which I love doing, but I noticed that the ones which I wanted to work on most were the ones where I had been inspired or moved by the music itself. This in turn has started a new project of mine on Flickr which I have called “Musically Inspired Album Covers”. The artwork here has been created with no other influence other than the music (playing on repeat1). I start with a blank screen and just start designing and hopefully create something that fits the style. Obviously there are subconscious influences, as with any design, which will come in to play but for the most part it just about me, the music and Illustrator CS5. I’d like to think that most of the designers below in the gallery have taken a similar approach as some of the designs seem to match the music perfectly.

Here a few of the design I have created so far in the Musically inspired album cover series. Follow my Flickr stream if you want to see more as I’m planning to keep this series going for a while or at least until I run out of truly inspirational music (which won’t be any time soon).

Inspired by Gareth Emery and the track Metropolis

Inspired by Jean Michel Jarre’s album Equinoxe

Inspired by Jean Michel Jarre’s album Zoolook

Inspired by Deadmau5’s album Lack of a better name

Inspired by Röyksopp’s album Junior

Inspired by Röyksopp’s album Melody A.M.

Inspired by Mike Oldfield’s album Platinum

Inspired by The Avalanches’ album Since I Left You

Inspired by BT’s album These Hopeful Machines

Inspired by Daft Punk’s single Digital Love

Inspired by Daft Punk’s single Around the World

Top 5 Album Cover Art

Below this is my full collection but I thought I would just outline my top 5 beforehand. These are my favourites and really encompass what I love about album cover art design.

Yes – Union (Roger Dean)

Jean Michel Jarre – Equinoxe

Crystal Method – Divided By Night (Neil Ashby)

Muse – Resistance (La Boca)

Rafale – Rock it, Don’t Stop it (Akroe)

Inspirational Album Cover Art Gallery

Here is the gallery of a selection of album cover art which I find really inspirational and exciting. If you know who the designer was please add a comment and a URL if possible so they get some recognition.

Exclusive iPad Wallpaper

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Here I have made available 4 Apple iPad Wallpapers based on some of my old and new poster designs. The wallpaper designs will work either in landscape or portrait mode being at 1024px x 1024px and are at a resolution of 132dpi. Some work better as the lock screen and other for the home screen, but depends on your taste. I am currently using my CUBEN design as you can see below.

iPad Wallpaper Previews

Here are some mock-up / previews of the iPad Wallpapers with the download links located at the very bottom of these.

Shape of My Heart

Open Water Design

CUBEN 2010 Design

This is my current iPad wallpaper, which I use for the home screen as well as the lock screen:

International Year of Astronomy Design

iPad Wallpaper Downloads

Magazine Graphic Design this month

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Here are some selected magazine, book features and commissions this month of my graphic design work. I have stopped listing all the new features I get now as I find it hard to keep up particular the website ones. I’m at about 2-3 a day and although I appreciate all of them I’m sorry if I don’t mention them all.

Below is my master-class in Digital Arts magazine, WIRED magazine 2 pages illustration, 4 page designs for GreenSource Magazine, What about type article in Desktop: Magazine and shots of my work from The Typed Image book.

Digital Arts Magazine – Design a geometric retro poster

I was commissioned this month by Digital Arts to do a materclass tutorial based on one of my latest designs, Time Curve #3. The tutorial goes into the new features of Adobe Illustrator CS5 and Adobe Indesign CS5 (my weapons of choice) along with some Javascript language. There is a nice “follow the script” section which goes into some detail about how scripts work with Illustrator and how you can use them to do tasks that would normally take you hours to do.

Along with the 4 page tutorial you also get a free poster of the design which looks great. I will be selling a limited gallery edition print of this design later in the month.

There is a nice section on “creative block” and what designers do to get over it.

Here is the free poster:

The magazine is on sale now in most newsagents or online.

Here is the original poster which will be available in a few weeks on a limited edition of 50 prints. Time Curve #1 print is available now.

WIRED Magazine – Space Junk

This is a follow on from my previous iPad WIRED Magazine app post with some shots of the actual June edition of WIRED magazine with my illustrations. The article on space junk is by Evan I. Schwartz.

GreenSource Magazine – it isn’t easy grading green

I was contacted by GreenSource magazine who were after some environmental style designs and came across my fun with circles and ripple designs – which were perfect for their article on “grading green”.

Each issue of the GreenSource magazine and website features case studies of projects that illustrate good design and innovative green characteristics. June’s issue is available now.

Here is the original design which if you are interested is available to buy as a print.

Desktop: Magazine – What about type?

Thanks to Desktop: Magazine and my good mate Luca from Like Minded Studios for including me in this feature on typography in the June edition of the magazine. I haven’t got a copy of the magazine yet but here are a couple of shots I do have.

The article by Luca covers interviews with typography designers Alex Trochut, Dmote, Jonathan Zawada, Corey Holms, Deanne Cheuk, Brian Jaramilo, Justin Thomas Kay, Nancy Rouemy, Daren Newman, Luke Lucas, Matt Owens, Luca Barcellona, Simon Page, NUMSKULL and Benjamin Henessy.

The Typed Image – Book

Couple of my designs, below, have been featured in the book “The Typed Image” by Barbara Brownie which I believe is available now. It’s a great read and contains a huge array of interesting typographic designs.

New Print Designs

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I have updated my art prints site with a selection of new design available as prints. These designs are split up in the following categories.

Black and White Collection

This is a collection of black and white designs as well as an exclusive CUBEN print design shown below. All prints in this collection are gallery quality Giclée print on natural white, matte, ultra smooth, 100% cotton rag, acid and lignin free archival paper using Epson K3 archival inks. Custom trimmed with 2″ border.

Exclusive CUBEN Print

This style was created last year but I haven’t released a print version of it before – it is available in sizes up to 28″ x 38″ through society6.

Feel the Life

Sound Circles

“X”

Visualise the Alphabet

Visual representation of the alphabet and frequency of letters in the 500 most common words in the English Language.

Futurism – Bullet Time

Futurism – Orbits

Futurism – Curved Space

Typography is Everything – Wide Awake

Typography is Everything – Life

Inner Contour

T-Shirts

Here are a couple of t-shirt designs of mine that you can purchase – click on the t-shirts below to see pricing, colours and sizes.

Doodles

A new series I started that are rather fun design mainly based on a play on words. Printed on museum-quality, 100% cotton rag, Canson Rag Photographique 310 GSM paper with Epson UltraChrome HDR inks.

Amaze

Lovebird

Fisheye

Road to Nowhere

Exclamation

I-Spy #1

I-Spy #2

Breakthrough

Nightclubs

Contour

Shape of My Heart

Open Water

Designs inspired by the film Open Water. Also printed on museum-quality, 100% cotton rag, Canson Rag Photographique 310 GSM paper with Epson UltraChrome HDR inks.

Odd Geometry

Geometric prints with an edge. Printed on museum-quality, 100% cotton rag, Canson Rag Photographique 310 GSM paper with Epson UltraChrome HDR inks.

Miscellaneous

Here are some one off designs that are also available. Printed on museum-quality, 100% cotton rag, Canson Rag Photographique 310 GSM paper with Epson UltraChrome HDR inks.

Spike

Time Curve

Other Work

Here is some other work which didn’t make as prints or were used elsewhere.

Pac-man 30th Anniversary

Odd Geometry #3 – used elsewhere

Deadlines

Miniaturized

Time Curve

A design based on this poster was used to create a tutorial (by me) in the latest Digital Arts magazine along with a free poster. A gallery standard edition print of this will be available next month.