Brief: To explore a music artist and express their album and the
story they tell through design.
Concept: Redesigning each one of Aaliyah's albums to retell the
story of each album.
Solution: Turning all 3 albums into a trilogy and reflecting on the songs,
choosing one word to describe each album and explore how she evolved
as an artist and a person through design.
The First Album: Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number.
The album that was released when Aaliyah was 15. Within this Album I focused
mainly on the productions of it.The naivety that lies in the lyrics she sang.
The pink swirled textures of the background symbolise the foggy mind and
not being able to see through the naivety. The lyrics on the cover of the album are
to contradict the innocence of the artist at 15 with the brash lyrics.
The Second Album: One in a Million
This album took a turning of a completely new style of R&B music.
I felt that in this album Aaliyah shows glimpses of finding herself and
building confidence in the industry she is working in.
Hence why I thought this album fitted the word ‘Introspection.’
The design of the album represented the futuristic feel the album holds.
The colours emerging from the corners represent the ‘new world of funk’ being revealed.
The Third Album: Aaliyah
'Aaliyah' is the last album Aaliyah released. The self-titled album screams confidence
and assertiveness. The use of red within the album is to symbolise the confidence
Aaliyah gives off.
The idea behind the use of the handwriting type was to show that Aaliyah was
making her mark in music history as a young artist and showing how she developed.
The words in the background of the cover are also refereed to having that connection
to the colour red but I also thought they fitted perfectly with describing this album.
Activation: How each album would appear on Spotify, web and phone.
Activation: Aaliyah was born in Brooklyn, New York. I wanted to explore this and mock up
the album covers onto billboards found all around New York. This was to pay tribute to Aaliyah,
showing how she evolved through each album and remind people of the musical talent
that lies in Brooklyn.
Activation: Another way to show tribute was by taking her albums to the Brooklyn Subway.
A busy atmosphere reminding people of the albums that she released over 10 years ago.
As you enter the Brooklyn subway, the new cover designs would be screening.
Taking the textures of each album cover and having them painted onto the pillars in the subway.
