CLING 2 IT - Playlist Cover

Starting the Process

When working on album covers, you would naturally listen to the songs and perhaps read the lyrics to get a feel of the direction (in addition to obviously what the parametres the client sets). With playlist covers that is not always a given. In this case, the client loves to collect up a lot of songs from different artist, genres etc. Therefore, when it comes to the "Jamie Jano" series, I usually go by the title only.

Title as a 'prompt'

With "Cling 2 It", my first instinct was to go in the direction of the embrace/hugging meaning of "cling". But since I didn't get the feel for intimacy or romance from the many dance/electronica/remix type of songs, I had to scrap the embrace-focused mood board and have a re-think.

In the kitchen of all places, I suddenly thought of cling-film/ cellophane (something I do not actually use anymore). And the way my brain works, suddenly I had a lot of imagery in my head of feeling trapped, somebody doing the dangerous "plastic bag over the head" routine. So I started to search for stock images of people screaming due to entrapment. When, I came across a male model screaming under a sheet of plastic film, it all came together.

Sensitive imagery?

I was very mindful that some people may feel triggered or uncomfortable by the photo, so I did my best to obscure the image playing with black&white, levels, contrast, and other filters.

The remaining process

As the image itself of rather dark and dull - especially I overlayed it with foil textures - part of the cover space needed a good contrast. With yellow you can't really go wrong (the first pass was orange actually).

A halftone layer and some splashes (from Frankentoon's brush pack) were added for finishing touches.

I don't remember whether I played around with HSL adjustments or other filters.

Any room for improvement?

Yes - always! For starters, the use of the name JAMIE JANO on the top and then the Jamie Jano Logo I made adds anything but is rather repetitive; especially since the logo is a bit too big on here.

Of course, I welcome any additional thoughts from the community (whoever may see this).

And outer frame (i.e., margin) would have also been a good idea, although I quite like the text edges being right on the edge too.

Tools and Resources:

Affinity Designer

Affinity Photo

Envato Elements