Release your inner sleeve designer
This “sleeve”, created as part of Flickr’s CD Cover meme, uses randomly generated data from Wikipedia,
quotationspage.com and Flickr to generate your own fantasy album cover. Type, setting: designer’s own
What’s this? A hot new cover for a band so cutting edge that you haven’t even read about them on Pitchfork yet? Or were The Languages… an unsung band from the Factory years, only to be eclipsed by the success of Joy Division? Well, OK, I admit it; it’s not a new band at all (though the name is fantastic), rather it’s my first attempt at creating a sleeve for Flickr’s CD Cover meme.
It’s a simple game:
1. The first article title on this randomly generated Wikipedia page is the name of your band.
2. The last four words of the very last quote from this random page from quotationspage.com is the title of your album.
3. The third picture on this page, Flickr’s list of interesting pictures from the past seven days, is your album cover.
Now then, this third (and vital) aspect to your creation has caused a schism in the Flickr community currently obsessed with the game – whether to only rework images that are listed as free to use under their Creative Commons license or (as in the majority of the cases listed in the group) to use the random image regardless of its limitations. After all, these designs aren’t for profit or commercial use and are only created for mutual appreciation in the game.
While we don’t want to get preachy, we also want to ensure we don’t get into hot rock ‘n’ roll waters regarding image usage, so I used an photograph from this clever link which generates random images from the most Interesting photos list where the photographer has granted permission to alter and re-use their work, in accordance with their Creative Commons license.
The first image that came up from there was, Be my Valentine by Flickr member, Mozambique - Moments. Here’s the original:
And for all you type fans, during my 14 minutes in Photoshop (and for reasons I haven’t quite yet figured out) I settled on the grossly under-used SchoolHouse Printed A for the band name and Rosewood Std for the rather mysterious-sounding album title.
But enough about my new career, here are some of the best album covers posted recently in the Flickr CD cover group. Could this little game give budding designers the chance to shine? While there are some designs (including my own) that leave a lot to be desired, maybe you’ll end up spotting some real sleeve design talent? Or, at the very least, come up with a better name for your band.
By Kael Keough and R.J. Adler
By prime8monkey
By bmente, using an image by Jens Mollenvanger
By r.kamidees
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doesn’t this devalue graphic design as it creates the perception that the process of design can is a series of arbitary choices. Reminds of my old lecturer who hated all album covers because their worthless. i agree.
jon
21/Feb/08, 2:12 pm