The Project
After designing the rapper logo for K’LO, I was asked to use that and create the album cover for his newest single, “Big Business”. I was given an AI-generated image to use as inspiration and a starting point, and was told to somehow include the logo, song title, and parental advisory icon, but the specifics of the design were up to me.
The Process
The logos were previously created using Adobe Illustrator, the base image was provided by the client and generated using AI, but the overall composition was created using Adobe Photoshop.
I began by removing the generic text and icons, such as the store signs and license plates, and added in the artist-specific text and icons instead. So, I included the emblem logo on the store sign, as well as the song name, and the license plate was changed to the text version of the logo
Additionally, since the diamond is a key icon to this artist’s brand, I chose to create a hood ornament of the icon, so that even the car itself was unique to the artist.
Original AI-generated Image provided by client
Finalized Big Business album cover
The Purpose
For this project, the client wanted me to keep the image mostly the same, since that was a custom generated image that he provided. However, I also wanted to make this image unique to the artist, and the song.
I included the logos that I previously created, but I also wanted to include them in ways that blended in with the whole image, and didn’t stand out by looking like they didn’t belong.
So, I used the emblem logo and song title as the store signs. Then, I matched the color of those elements to a color sampled from the woman’s dress.
Also, I swapped out the license plate for the text version of the artist’s logo, created another subtle “easter egg” of the artist in the image. This was a way to incorporate both versions of the logo in different contexts, which overall connected the image to the artist.
Since this was an AI generated image, there were aspects that I didn’t exactly like. One of the main ones was how human faces were shown. I felt that the eyes especially made the person look lifeless or fake, so, I decided to scratch out the eyes to hide this flaw. Not only did it get rid of the lifelessness of her face, but it also went along with the danger theme that the car on fire was already displaying.
The parental advisory icon was another instance where I didn’t want the black and white to stand out too much and take away from the image. So, I chose to make the white portion transparent, so that it once again made the image feel more complete, not distracting.
