Feature 001 - Saga Bouy Album Cover Concepts
Artwork Proposal for
Saga Bouy Debut LP
Contacted with an array of initial photography supplied in late 2023, Jabari Manwa (Previously of Brockhampton, now under the alias Saga Bouy) was looking for design work for his planned album ‘Please Don’t Call Me’. The job-spec included album artwork creation, a tracklist design, as well as promotional singles for the album’s rollout.
Beginning work towards the years end, many of the initially provided portraits were used and experimented with to create key Album Art that would headline the visual style for the music released. Initially most editing and design work involved basic photo manipulation, working with increased contrast and a dark atmosphere, before the key art of the portrait combined with lightning bolt imagery was settled upon as the main focal point.
Many iterations of this layout were created, with variations in colour and some playing with the framing of the image, as well as different artist name and album name lockups devised and mocked up. These covers were given the print and scan treatment to add an additional sense of depth to the images, and sent to Manwa for review. In the meantime, some alternate designs were requested, specifying the use of some new photography, resulting in the later design concepts shown. This initial set of imagery was also used when designing two options for album tracklists/back cover looks.
Following the album cover designs, two sets of Single Artwork were worked on. First, ‘She Means Nothing to Me’ was designed for, following with ‘Scary’. The former cover initially focused on similar dark and ethereal designs from the early album cover concepts, starting from the same iniital point but enhancing certain elements, before switching gears to a more graphic-oriented style upon the artist’s request. The hot pink colour was requested by the artist, as well as a reference featuring a portrait as a card within an image. This idea was explored alongside type layouts featuring letters in bubbles, and a vast array of information about the single used to populate the image. Finally the artist requested to see a similar layout applied to a floppy disk mockup, resulting in the last two design options shown.
The second cover art for the proposed Instagram-exclusive single at the time ‘Scary’ was initially dictated by the artist to feature and imitate film negatives, before wanting to explore more dynamic imagery, whereupon the second layout was worked on with a newly provided image, and multiple text arrangements experimented with, before landing on a dynamic type design created with honey, before being digitised.
Jack Churchley is a Sydney-based Graphic Designer working in and around Music, with 5 years of experience designing for an array of artists, from International acts like Kevin Abstract and Nate Dae, to local rising talent, all across digital and and physical processes, to create uniqe artwork.
(EM) intermission.designstudio@gmail.com
(IG) @Jack.Churchley / @Intermission.DesignStudio