Music Cover-Art Design • "Surge" :: The KaeZo (2022)

Graphic Designer

Marketing Strategist

Adobe Illustrator

Canva

A » About this project

In this project, I brought yet another Genius-Level Musical Masterpiece to life, by designing an Eye-Catching Visual Representation of the song.

A1 » The Project Description

This is the Song Cover-Art for "Surge", an Epic Instrumental Soundtrack I composed myself.

If you'd like, you can listen to it via the link at the bottom under "More".

A2 »» The Client: KaveriK The KaeZo

This is a ghost project; I made designed this piece for another project of my own. I still worked with the same diligence I would for another person/company.

The KaeZo is an "artist name" for my work in Music Composition and Production.

A3 » Project Goal

The goal of this design project was to create a cover image, that matched the name and the atmosphere the song was intended to create.

The song is called Surge. It was composed to give its listeners a feeling of intense energy, excitement & motivation. I decided the best way to represent a "surge" of energy, was to use the symbol of electricity.

B » The Process

This is the "Behind The Scenes" peek into how I made this cover art.

B0 »» The Final

Here's the final image. It's a reference point for you to understand the process better. Scroll down to see how it came to be.

Surge Cover-Art -- Final ... ?

B1 »» Phase 1:

B1.1 »»» Background Image v1

Here, I sourced a background image from Canva's asset library.

Surge Cover-Art -- Background v1

B1.2 »»» Artist Name & Font Type v1

Here, I sourced my artist name from my logo (at the time).

Surge Cover-Art -- Artist-Name v1

B1.3 »»» Mockup v1

Simply put; I "slapped" the elements together.

Surge Cover-Art -- Mockup v1

B2 » Phase 2

B2.1 »»» Background Image v2

This is the 2nd background image I sourced from Canvas asset library.

Surge Cover-Art -- Background v2

B2.2 »»» Adding The Artist Name

An artist's name must be present. Any song is a piece of marketing material itself. Thus, adding the name, and making sure it's properly visible - even if it's small - is a crucial step in designing cover art.

Surge Cover-Art -- Artist-Name v2

B2.3 »»» Adding The Song Title (Mockup v2)

Just as with the Artist Name, the Song Title is also crucial (more crucial if you ask me)

The design here, did not "make the cut". Why?

Well ... the font I used here did NOT communicate to me, the *feeling* of a SURGE of energy. (see changes below)

Surge Cover-Art -- Song Title v1

B2.3 »»» "Make it Pop" (Colour Enhancement)

A frustrating request ... a frustrating request?

Some designers don't like being asked to "make it pop". I imagine that's in part because the process of "making a design pop", can tend to look like a work of magic.

"Making it pop", is a process that is developed like a muscle, over time and practice, into something that begins to resemble intuition.

To be specific, • I upped the saturation, • upped the contrast, • ducked the shadows, • slightly boosted the highlights • upped the sharpness a little, • & added a bit of vignette.

Surge Cover-Art -- Colour Correction

B3 »» Stage 3

B3.1 »»» The New Text & The "Dark Portal"

As I explained above, the font ... the font need something to communicate energy. What better to do the job that a font called "Electrical".

Contrast.

Contrast is the one simple thing I find lacking in many designs I see. In simple terms, it means to ensure that different elements are:

easy visible

& still be (comfortably) legible.

This was the reasoning behind adding this dark blob here.

Surge Cover-Art -- Sont Title v2 + Contrast-Element

B3.2 »»» Great Contrast

Following the explanation above, here's what the design looks with great text contrasting.

Surge Cover-Art -- Contrast Added

B3.3 »»» Name Alignment (Final 1)

Lastly, I felt like it was really weird to have the Artist-Name "hiding" in a corner, so I centred it to match the Song Name.

I also removed the curvy line from under the Song Title; it wasn't adding any value. In design, "less is more".

... and voila! (for now)

Surge Cover-Art -- Artist-Name v3

B3.4 »»» Font Coherence (Final 2)

Does a design really ever truly finish? Does a designer stop growing?

No. I don't think so.

I recently looked over this and realised the Artist-Name font-type, was just not coherent with the theme. I decided to use the same font here, as I did with my other similar project, "Web-Head".

Surge Cover-Art -- New Final

C » In Closing

C1 »» More on This Project

If you'd like to listen to the song on YouTube, here's the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WKBOuPgPYF4

For a short Spotify preview, follow the link here: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/thekaezo/surge

C2 »» Project Reflection

This was an amazing learning opportunity that taught me that it's wise to consider past projects and materials when working on something new. This speeds up my workflow and helps me improve on mistakes I made in the past.

All this learning is a continual effort to be able to give my clients THE BEST service I possibly could.

Thank you for scrolling through. I appreciate you.