Brief 7 : Competition Brief : Secret 7"

Brief

Song Decision & Concept

Song Choice: At Last
Artist: Etta James
Genre: Love Ballad

As this song is such a strong, powerful piece, it is relevant and appropriate to focus on the actual music itself along with the iconic, recognisable image of Etta James' profile from the album. James has had a varied and shady past, as most stars have. This would also be interesting to represent within the imagery creating a more personal and coloured design to reflect all of her experiences and personalities.

Image Inspiration

 

Above Left: The record cover which features James' profile, this represents how personal and important the music is to her, she is showing her ownership whilst also creating recognition for herself. The record would be easy to find because of the bold yellow colour, in addition, featuring her face on the record sleeve means that people could search for her music by actually looking for her photograph.

Above Right: Here is one example of the string sheet music for this particular song.

Further Research

- The song became a major big band hit in October 1942.
- Etta James recorded this in 1961 shortly after signing with Chess records. Leonard Chess thought James was a classy ballad singer and saw pop crossover potential in her;
- With lyrics about finding that one true love and a classical feel, this is a very popular wedding song.

- The orchestra was mostly made of string instruments

- She started to sing when she was 5 in her local church choir
- James's career was hampered by lifelong struggles with drug abuse. She was virtually unheard from on the music scene between 1978 and 1989

- Etta James Quote

- Etta James Quote

- Etta James Quote

Digital Developments

As the submissions are digital, it is more that appropriate to proceed straight onto Illustrator to experiment with these images and influences.

 

As mentioned previously, Etta James is a recognisable character, especially since her record cover featured her profile. This is an iconic image and so it was felt that it needed to be incorporated within the design.

Sheet Music Influence

Sheet Music

By warping the ledger lines featured on the original piece of sheet music, various designs can be created, below.

 

The lines above left, show how the ledger lines from the sheet music were warped , yet confined within Etta's profile.

 Adding a coloured background creates more of a contrast with the white (innocent and pure) lines whilst also providing a bold, bright image overall. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, it also represents her 'colourful' past and battle with drugs and how she managed to come out of it on the right side. Yet, it will always be a part of her.

 

Using red lines creates the connotations of blood and love. This represents her love of singing and how music 'runs through her veins'.

 Overlapping the red with blue visually shows how James crossed over between genres in 1961, from classic ballads to R&B. They are seen to be opposites and yet, it was managed seamlessly.

 
 
By layer and rotation the image, this reveals how she had different lives, as we all do. The singer and performer and the woman that she was with her friends and family.

Final Digital Design

It was essential to have a crit as to ensure that the most successful design is chosen to submit

The above variations were chosen to submit as they were seen to be the most appropriate and representative of the decided concept for this brief. The students taking part in this crit agreed that these represented the concept well.

Photoshoot

 

 

Evaluation

Using the original sheet music, the ledger lines were warped within the constraints of Etta James' silhouette from the original image of the record sleeve. The lines represent how the music ‘runs through her veins’ whilst the 2 colours, which are in fact gradient lines, represent the crossover and in some cases the blend of genres in 1961, from ballads to R&B. These two, bold colours contrast against the simple white background which represents her purity and innocence, whilst the white could also be considered to be hiding the past or the starting over of her career and life once she managed to overcome her drug addiction.
 The skills developed within this project were, the ability to design to scale, experiment with line and colour (the gradient of the lines), whilst also designing and creating the actual sleeve itself. To fold the product, a new machine in the print room was utilised to give a more professional fold, ensuring that the printed colour would not be removed/damaged when creased.

Additional Work

 

 

As to add further colour into the design whilst also giving myself a better chance of being chosen for the exhibition, a variation of the final design was created, shown above. This consisted of a coloured background, the outcome of a paint experiment. The lines were then altered to white as to stand out against such bold, vibrant tones.