GRAPHIC DESIGN
LEMONBOY
This album cover design was a commissioned by a good friend of mine from college.
​
In summer of 2024, he announced that he'd be releasing his first recorded album and had asked me to design the cover art for the album.
Client Mock-Up
Below is the mock-up design my friend created in Canva and sent me to reference.
​​
The idea was to have each of the songs on his album represented somewhere in piece (the blue ribbon is a reference to the track "Ribbons", the coffee cup is a reference to the track titled "Autopilot", etc.)
Style Inspiration
After discussing with my friend some of the artists and design styles that inspired him, I compiled a collection of pieces to help inform the look of this piece. Ultimately, we decided to design the background in a more painterly style and contrast it with a more cartoony look for the foreground elements (in the vein of Adventure Time.)
Above images credit: @accorvio
Above image sources: Adventure Time, Adventure Time: Distant Lands
Rough Pass
With the references and mock-up together, I set to work on my first pass of the painting portion of the album in Procreate. At the same time, I also began to design the foreground elements using ink on paper to give them a more classic hand-drawn feel.
Revisions
Upon submitting the first pass of the cover design to my friend, we discussed and agreed on making some revisions. His request was to extend the painterly style of the lemon and the night sky into the outer edges of the cartoony elements, to help them blend into the background better.
​
For my part, I suggested playing with the sizes of the various elements- making some larger and some smaller, to help fill the space better.
​
Lastly, my friend requested that I change the ship from a pure white "paper boat" to a more realistic cruise ship, add some sand to the message in the bottle, and add one more song reference to the smartphone screen (in this case, I chose the track titled "Worse".
Final Design
Below is the final cover art design- the album for which is now available for listening on Spotify!
