Text on album covers is tacky? Whatever 🤌🏼 Vienna Starlight Boom 😒

Typography can ABSOLUTELY make an album cover.

During the pandemic, I got obsessed with album cover design. I'd spend hours looking at covers, researching the designers behind them, and trying to understand the decisions and creative processes that made them work.

It was one of those design rabbit holes I could never get tired of. 💀

I'm bringing that interest back with a new cover inspired by the music I love, including Neil Young's Harvest, Bandalos Chinos' Paranoia Pop and Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats' Vol. 1.

Looking at these alongside other great album covers, one thing stands out: typography CAN be the image!

I took inspiration and designed one as well!

What's an album cover where the typography is impossible to separate from the artwork? Show me your favorites.

Reid Miles' Blue Note covers are my pick, where the cropped oversized lettering carries as much mood as any photo could. Your Paranoia Pop treatment has that quality too, the letterforms feel poured into the image rather than placed on it.

Pulsix started with a question: how much of a sportswear identity can you fit on the front of a cap?

I designed the brand around an angular X with a pulse cut through its center. On a pink cap, the chartreuse X can stand alone. On a billboard, the photograph and “Future is now!” headline take the lead. In this loop, the black Pulsix logo anchors a moving grid of apparel, campaign graphics and digital layouts.

My roles: Brand Designer, Graphic Designer, Motion Designer. Tools: Adobe Illustrator, Adobe After Effects, Figma.

Full case study: https://contra.com/p/XvP3ccE3-pulsix-sportswear-brand-identity-and-motion-design

Where would you try the X first: on the cap or in motion?

I'd try it on the cap first. Motion can borrow the pulse cut once the static X proves it holds up at small sizes, and the watch face already hints that it does. Did the pulse line change shape between the cap and the animated loop?