Album Art:
The Violet Stones'
"Guinea Pig"​
Challenge
Australian band, The Violet Stones, needed cover art for their 2020 single, “Guinea Pig.” The goal was to create a pleasing album art that also aided in telling more about the topic of the song: hypocritical religious bigots that cherry-pick which aspects to follow from God’s word, judging others for their sins whilst living in their own sins.
Solution
The band members wanted to illustrate specific themes within the song, without giving away too much and being ‘obvious’ about lyrical meaning. Lyrics like, “light your candle, I can’t see what’s in front of me,” served as the basis of certain imagery depicted. The snake served as a reminder of the religious themes throughout the song, the serpent being an iconic religious figure within the Bible’s book of Genesis. The cherries served as a visual metaphor for the cherry-picking mentioned prior. Band members also led me in creative direction, deciding on certain aspects of the cover art, such as the background cover and the stylized handwritten font.
Above is the song, in order to give some context to the album art (and so you can see my art in action).
Results
The album cover resulted in a vibrant, metaphor-filled work of art that I am proud to call my ‘first-born’, as it was the very first album art I had ever worked on. I learned many things, including collaboration, teamworking, freelance experience and client-work, and digital illustration.