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Boots: Album cover
Alyx Simpson-Coyle
Project Brief
Design a cover for a digital audio product (a music album, podcast, or audiobook) with simple graphic shapes that stand out among other covers and attract people’s attention.
Project Detail
For this project I chose to redesign the 1966 album cover for ‘Boots’ by Nancy Sinatra.
‘Boots’ was Nancy Sinatra's debut album it portrays themes of female independence, confidence, and reclaiming power after emotional betrayal. Most of the songs on the album feature lyrics that are more conversational rather than lyrical, this is especially evident on the title track ‘These Boots were made for Walkin’. The album was completely different form the mainstream records being produced at that time and was responsible for transforming the era's traditional, vulnerable pop into a modern statement of self-assurance.
My design theme focuses heavily on 1960’s pop culture with a hint of Las Vegas glamour, a gentle nod to the artists time in residence in Las Vegas. I began my design by choosing a colour palette and fonts focusing on rounded letters and bright ‘psychedelic’ colours reminiscent of the 1960’s.
The fonts and colour combination used in my final design contribute to the flair and stylisation associated with the 1960’s.
My Process
I developed my font choice through experimentation using a combination of both layout and size.
My design is heavily influenced by movement an aspect which was taken from the title track of the album ‘These Boots were made for Walkin’ – I experimented with footsteps walking across the graphic space but decided to draw a pair of stylised boots walking instead.
For the text I chose the font Ekamai, I created two layers, for each letter of the word boot, one for the colour and one in black – I offset the black letter layer to create a shadow effect. Each letter was then moved to further reinforce the notion of movement, making the title seem happy and bouncy.
For the artists name I change the font to Black Pack VF – I created two layers one in colour and one in black, the black layer was sent to the back and again offset to create the illusion of a shadow.
Once I was happy with the text I positioned the word boots vertically within a text box this was to try and stylise the element as a Las Vegas billboard.
The drawing of the boots seemed lonely on the centre of the graphic, so I decided to add a line and repositioned them to give the appearance that they were walking along it.
About me
I am a mature student studying on the new BDes degree, after graduation I would like to complete a masters degree in design, and set up as a freelance designer.