27 Club Process

The old animated draft (it doesn't have the gold dots)

Still cool though

For the 27 Club project. I knew that I had to create the remix and print the vinyl well in advance. In many ways it was going to define what the finished result would be. It is a high risk design choice with no guarantee of perfection due to this being my first time getting a design printed on the actual vinyl and pushing that into the medium of animation.

I had a pretty good idea of the direction I would head with the typography, a beautiful sans-serif font called Neue Haas Grotesk and Knockout.

However, as I started experimenting with spread ideas, I really wanted to change my choice to using a combination of Didot and Arno Pro. With such a dark topic, I felt it was necessary to contrast it with a serif font.

However, I had already sent the Vinyl design off to print and even though I tried hard to introduce the fonts, I admitted defeat. 2 fonts is already a lot, 3 is pushing it, 4 is for the most part a mess. I wanted this to be a set, not a cool Vinyl plus a cool booklet that didn't go together.

So I realised that if I was going to stick to these fonts, I would use them in as many cool ways as possible, whether people agreed with the choices or not.

As I played around with the fonts, I realised Knockout had a lot of Weights and I started purposefully experimenting with them, almost border lining on what I’d consider atrocious design. I was flipping them, rotating them and changing weights frequently in an attempt to discover some unique concept.

I started listening to the music, listening to interviews to get an understanding of Jimi Hendrix. As always, I could only do what I knew, research was essential. I discovered that his favourite colour was green and the line ‘BOLD AS LOVE’ really struck out to me. It was one of the first songs I really nailed playing on the electric guitar, I opened my spotify window and tried to drag it to the right to let me listen and design at the same time. Whilst doing so in a rush, I accidentally tapped the strikethrough option just a few pixels above. In doing so, my brain finally connected the dots and I found a concept that paired the music to the type.

Guitars have six strings: Low E, A, D, G, B and the high e string. I decided it was a great idea and promptly mocked up an example and compared it to the previous spread idea. Now we were talking! Sure— majority of type designers will say it’s a crime, however this design project is something I’m doing out of a passion and so in the word’s of Hendrix. I’m Bold as Love.

Obviously the spread is still ugly as hell but there is a solid concept here and once I come back and refine it, I think it will be a winner.

In order to get this project done on time, I’m going to have to do a lot in the next few days…here we go.

TO DO:

Lock in a style/consistency and then setup the style guide, baseline grid and start putting in the content

Follow up vinyl printers in the UK

Refine the content + lockdown the imagery

Finish up the ink type

Demo#1

Still incomplete and lots to refine, but the basic structure of both the A & B side are done.

Triumvirat - Flashback

Passion Fruit - Do You Remember

Big Star - In The Street

Amy Winehouse - Addicted

The Doors - Riders on the Storm

Hole - Plump

Fat Pat - Wreckshop

Lost Boyz - Freaky Tah

Inner Circle - Sweat

Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit

27 Club Remix

The idea is to create a companion song with the type booklet that is created purely using the music from the 27 Club.

Here are the rules I've made for myself:

I must switch rather frequently so that it's taking something old, something new and meshing genres that you wouldn't expect together. This isn't a mixtape, it's a proper remix.

EG. A Rapper Like Fat Patover the top of Nirvana's Grunge Guitars.

Or taking the piano line from a progressive rock trio (Triumvirat) and mixing it with the vocals from a euro-pop girl group like Passion Fruit.

I can alter the audio as much as I desire, but I must only use the 27 club as the source.

Vinyl Experiment One.