This workshop aimed to create a fictitious vinyl album cover for an artist of our choice within three days, followed by a screen-printing session on the fourth day and a presentation on the fifth. My partner, Rémi, and I decided to focus on the UK Garage genre, a subgenre of electronic music that blends breakbeat rhythms, basslines, and vocals often drawn from dancehall or rap music. This choice allowed us to merge our musical interests: mine in electronic music and his in rap.
We wanted to approach the project differently rather than designing a fictitious album for an imagined artist. We came up with the idea of creating a "UK Garage Manifesto" that would trace the genre's rich and complex history. Given the limited time, we spent the first two days delving into the genre's origins and cultural significance while simultaneously working on the album cover design.
On the printing day, due to constraints that prevented us from using multiple colors, we chose to print our design in black ink. To introduce variation, we utilized different colored cardboard for the album covers. Additionally, we created multiple record labels (stickers placed in the center of the vinyl) to experiment with color combinations and harmonize them with the album cover. This approach allowed us to maintain a dynamic and visually cohesive design despite the technical limitations.