Making A Record: The Art of Artwork
They say you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but that’s not so easy when it comes to music. In a world of Spotify playlists and weekly trips to Grimey’s New & Preloved Music, seeing an artist’s album cover is often the first experience you have with them.
When I hear “Drain You” by Nirvana, I see that little baby floating in the pool. When I hear The Boss croon on “Blinded By The Light” I can see those giant postcard letters that read “Greetings From Asbury Park” clear as day.
Album artwork is so closely associated with the music on the record, it’s no wonder my band and (just about) every other artists puts so much time and energy into it.
Swear and Shake, an independent artist, has always done its own album artwork. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. Picking just the right image, forcing it into a perfect little square is one of the most fun and challenging parts of completing a record. In our opinion, it’s not over until you’ve filled that little square placeholder on iTunes.
We’re often talking and thinking about album artwork all throughout the songwriting recording process. Adam, being a disciple of of Austin Klingon’s Steal Like An Artist, keeps a swipe file on his phone collecting anything and everything that might provide inspiration. Paintings from museums, other bands’ merch, thrift shop vinyl, gas station souvenirs, you name it.
To do the artwork for Fire, we built a dollhouse, added furniture, rubbed some flammable gel on it, and set it on fire. We took the photos ourself. It was seriously fun, perhaps inadvisable (the fire and doing the photography ourselves).
Maple Ridge, our first LP, was sonically pretty diverse, and so we had trouble finding a photograph could fully tell the story. So we settled on an insignia: a maple tree seed complimented the name of the record and spoke to new beginnings. The first full-length from a new band, ready to grow.
Certain records evoke different colors, our first EP was tan, and we thought that matched the folky vibe we were putting out pretty well.
And quick note: If you ever speak with an old-timer music biz person, they’ll tell you to make sure your album artwork is a lighter color so Sharpie autographs show up alright.
And now you’ve caught us at an interesting time! We have an almost-finished record titled “The Sound Of Letting Go.” It’s a pretty image-rich name already, and we’re trying to find just the right image to pull it all together.
For us, “The Sound of Letting Go” sounds like one big exhale. It sounds freeing. And for whatever reason, we all feel like this means the artwork will be blue. Blue like dusk. We’re not ready to share that artwork yet (follow up post, anyone?) but we can’t wait to, and if you are interested in following along and hearing our new material, you can do so at pledgemusic.com/swearandshake.
Kari Spieler
Swear and Shake
