Mind Map:
My concept for this was to focus on something very specific to challenge myself. I wanted to do my favorite band, Fleet Foxes, but then I ended up narrowing my search to their self-titled album. I have a lot of personal attachments to this album, it has a lot of really beautiful symbolism and imagery, and it has a lot of significance in early 2000’s indie music. I made my mind map to the album and focused on imagery from each song. I want the icons to have significance with their most popular songs and to showcase the overall “vibe” of the album.
There’s a lot of nature and folksy imagery in the lyrics, so a lot of these will be more like allusions to certain songs.
Phase II: Thumbnails/Roughs
Thumbs:
I’m definitely going to do another round of thumbs for my 6 that I end up choosing because I still feel like I haven’t hit a good spot with any of these. But, I’m probably going to focus on the meadowlark (or a sparrow), the crown, the wheat, the strawberry, the scarf, and the knife.
6 Roughs:
Thumbnails:
For these, i tried to maintain simple line and shape. I wanted them to have a little movement and tried to play with the negative space and closure. I want to try to find a shape element that keeps them more cohesive (I thought of translating the seed-like shapes on the strawberry into parts of each icon)
Phase III: First Finishes in Illustrator
I have a lot I want to fix with these already, but i made a few adjustments to the bird (so hopefully it doesnt look like a snail anymore lol) and I’m still kind of smoothing things out as I look at it more and more. I’m still not settled on a color palette because I don’t know if i like the blue I chose (it feels too much like primary colors and a little too close to the ugly “Penn west” colors)
I did three sets of these so that it would be easier to see them in black and white, with color, and reversed with color blocking behind them. I, personally am leaning more towards the third option with the color blocking but I need to make sure they are all sized similarly and can read a little easier.
Phase IV: Final Icon System
I made some changes to these and stuck with the circle color-blocking in the background. I took the suggestion to round off the sharper edges and to use 6 different colors, sticking with a very autumnal palette based on “Netherlandish Proverbs” by Pieter Breugel the Elder, which is the painting on the album cover. I also added the shadow element that was mentioned in the icons that were missing it.
Overall, I’m really happy with these changes and suggestions and I think that it made a huge improvement!
FINAL ICONS:
These are my adjustments based on today’s critique. I changed the color palette and sampled from the painting, Netherlandish Proverbs, since this is the album art.
I tried to keep true to local colors of the icons and also stay true to the lyrics, since the scarf needed to be red and the crown needs to be gold. I also went with a cool color for the dagger because it’s supposed to be a “silver dagger” but I didnt want to use gray. I realized that each color has a saturated tone and a more muted tone. I also rounded my edges out way more and added a few more ovular shapes throughout.
Overall, I put a lot of work into these and I’m pretty pleased with the overall aesthetic of them. I think this color palette is much more effective.
