#record frame

As we continue to explore the artworks for some of this year’s shortlisted albums for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award, next up is English DJ, record producer and musician Nicolaas Douwma aka Sub Focus and his fourth album 'Evolve' which was created by Mat Maitland from the award winning creative consultancy Big Active.

We caught up with Mat who gave us an insight into the creative concepts and processes for the artwork. He told us, "With any new project we like to discuss things thoroughly before starting to present ideas and for this album it was very collaborative in establishing the creative route."

Big Active had a good starting point for the project and a rich history with Sub Focus having worked on three previous albums with him - ‘Portals’, ‘Reworks I’ and ‘Torus’ and Mat explains, "Often with music campaigns, we are honing in on two things primarily - the central concept and the visual aesthetic.”

Sub Focus & Wilkinson - ‘Portals’ EMI (2020) artwork by Big Active

Sub Focus ‘Reworks I’ RAM records (2021) artwork by Big Active

Sub Focus - ’Torus’ RAM Records, Virgin EMI Records (2013) artwork by Big Active

We asked Mat about the inspirations for the current album artwork for 'Evolve', he says, "Conceptually there was something early on that came out of our discussions with Nicolaas, the idea of Nudibranchs - a group of tiny soft-bodied molluscs that live under water, noted for their extraordinary colours and striking forms. Nicolaas is a keen diver and had come across these on his travels. Straight away we felt that this was a really interesting thing to base the campaign on. Firstly, it was an unusual subject matter and secondly it talked to the title ‘Evolve’ perfectly -  having a synergy with human evolution as well as sonic mutations symbolised in the music itself."

Mat explains, "Aesthetically we didn’t want to just use straight documentary images of Nudibranchs, so we had some decisions to make in how to present the concept. I had been working on a personal project the previous year with digital artist Claudia Rafael and felt that she would be a great collaborator in elevating how the forms were depicted. After collating a huge bank of imagery we decided to remove any sense of environment, instead having them live in a void of darkness to elevate their impact but also remove any concept of scale. Working with Claudia, we processed all of this source material through GAN machine learning. This is a process whereby the computer is learning to mimic and re-render the imagery and while doing so, creates less accurate versions of it. It also starts mixing up and combining elements from all the separate images to create new versions."

This re-rendered concept and technique was continued for the accompanying single release artworks and, taking the creative concept to a fully immersive offering, Mat and the team also produced a set of animations for each of the releases for an installation at the album launch where the work was projected on huge immersive LED screens.

Calling For a Sign - Sub Focus 2023

Fine Day - Sub Focus (single cover)

I Found You - Sub Focus (single cover)

Vibrations - Sub Focus (single cover)

Mat continues, "So, this ‘evolutionary’ theme was also inherent in the creation of the final album cover imagery itself which we then took to its full conclusion by producing a ‘lenticular’ LP format where the images animate and evolve in front of your eyes. As GAN renders out thousands of images it was a process of curation with Nicolaas in deciding which frames were chosen for the artwork. Once we had decided on the isolated frames (for the main cover art) we then used the frames either side of this for the lenticular LP…which uses five separate images to create the ‘morph’."

The 'Evolve' lenticular album cover fills Art Vinyl’s album-artwork-archivist hearts with joy. It really is something to be seen in the flesh, morphing before your very eyes and epitomising the joy of owning the physical vinyl release. Another masterpiece of album artwork added to the Best Art Vinyl annals.

Lenticular LP of Sub Focus - Evolve by Big Active Design

The shortlisted album artworks have been announced for our annual art prize Best Art Vinyl 2023. We now begin to delve into the creative process behind some of the 50 nominees. First up is 75 Dollar Bill's re-release of Power Failures for the first time on vinyl. We were lucky enough to catch up with the band's guitarist and album cover designer Che Chen.

Che Chen founded 75 Dollar Bill in 2011 with percussionist Rick Brown. He tells us, "I wanted to be a painter before I wanted to be a musician, so the visual aesthetic of the band has always been really important to me. I've done the artwork for all of our physical and digital releases, and many of our posters and fliers too."

Che Chen flyer design work for 75 Dollar Bill

Che Chen explains, "Power Failures first came out as a digital release on Bandcamp in July of 2020. It was our first pandemic summer, Trump was still president (hopefully for the last time!) and George Floyd had been murdered by Minneapolis Police Officers earlier that summer. There were protests everywhere, against police violence, institutional racism, wage inequality for essential workers, etc. The title of the record was very much a response to all of this, the way the pandemic exposed the failures of the state on all these different fronts."

The use of text-based artwork has in fact been a consistent theme for the artist, he told us, "Text has always been central to the visual language of the band, and many of our record covers feature text as the only "image" in the designs. This approach made sense to me for Power Failures, since the title was very evocative of everything that was going on, but also open-ended enough that I didn't want to add an image that might get in the way of whatever associations someone looking at those words might have. I wanted to push the idea of a text only image a bit by using the typography to create a pattern (of W's in this case) which is only broken by the album title. The digital album just had the single square image as its artwork, so when Karl Records in Berlin offered to make a vinyl edition of the album as a gatefold double album, we got to expand the art significantly. I repeated this process on the back cover with the band name and changed the background colour. The  LP centre labels refer back to the font and colour schemes of the front and back cover. I should also mention that the beautiful inside layout was done by Roland Küffner at Karl who did a fantastic job."

We asked Che Chen about the techniques he uses for his artworks, he explained, "The fonts I've used in most of my designs are actually from industrial moveable rubber stamp type. I've scanned physical prints of each set, several versions so that there are multiple versions of each character with slightly different imperfections, etc. I like the physical character of these fonts, how each impression is unique. For our first LP, Wooden Bag, Rick and I actually hand stamped the covers for the entire first edition using this rubber stamp type, but these days I mostly do the type setting on the computer."

Chen Chen got into music as a teenager in the suburbs of Washington DC in the 1990s when the post-hardcore scene around Dischord Records was thriving. The DIY ethos of bands taking control of their own production, from running their own labels and booking their own tours, to playing protests and benefits for local causes and working the door at their own shows, was and is still a big inspiration to him.

He tells us, "I've tried to carry those ideals on in my own work as best I can. Doing the art and the design for music projects I am involved with (and occasionally for friends) feels like an obvious extension of this. I love bands and labels that have a strong visual aesthetic and also really respect when artists are resourceful and can make striking designs using sometimes limited means. Sun Ra's home made jackets covers for his Saturn Records LPs and Harry Partch's Gate 5 Records are both examples of this for me."

Taken from the 'Sun Ra: Art on Saturn' Book - The Album Cover Art of Sun Ra's Saturn Label

U.S. Highball |Gate 5 Records, Issue No. 6 (First pressing, inscribed to Amos Vogel in 1960) Hardcover – January 1, 1956

Che continues, "Lisa Alvarado’s screen printed album covers for the Natural Information Society records and her paintings that hang while they play (she plays harmonium in the group too) are another perfect fusion of visual and musical aesthetics to me."

Mandatory Reality by Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society. Artwork by Lisa Alvarado

  For many years the music industry has predicted the demise of vinyl, with tapes, CDs and more recently MP3s being cited as the final nail in the coffin of the 12-inch. However, vinyl records provide a new generation of discerning music fans with an aesthetically pleasing and all-round experience that a download just doesn't provide. In short, vinyl records are making a major comeback.

  At Art Vinyl, this concept of taking existing objects and making them new and fresh again is something we’re familiar with. Using our unique frames music fans are able to celebrate the synergy between graphic art and music: utilising vinyl records as a contemporary art form, as well as creating an exciting and innovative storage and display option for any 12” collection.

  Play & Display Flip Frames are the first home framing device, which allows music lovers to change the contents instantly without taking the frame from the wall. Unique in its design, it is the first framing solution designed to specifically hold vinyl records, accommodate for the differences in album and 12” sizes and give the owner instant access to the playable contents. Available in neutral black or stunning white, Play & Display Flip Frames retail at £39 for one or £99 for a triple pack.

  Art Vinyl has had numerous exhibitions in the past with labels such as Mute, Domino, ZTT, Deejay Gigolo, legendary night club the Hacienda and presented the Art of 60’s London as part of Swinging Carnaby.