Vinyl Wednesday comes back at you with some custom record art from yours truly. This was the second sleeve that I designed for my latest project entitled “The 7-Inch Series” and it also happens to be one of my favorites.
This was actually a rather fun sleeve to make for me. I knew I wanted an illustrated feel to the overall look but wasn’t sure exactly how to go about that. I first started working on a watercolor idea and then moved onto a pen & ink style. While looking for some reference material for these ideas I stumbled upon some old maps and I immediately set out to work on this idea instead. “Proud Mary” references New Orleans and southern living and “Born On The Bayou” also speaks of Cajun life so a map of Louisiana was instantly in my mind.
The first thing I had to do was find a map that I liked. I came across a colorful version of Louisiana without the surrounding states and I immediately liked it. The illustrated elements of the jacket came from a different map image that I found later on. It’s obviously done by hand and definitely not perfect. That, to me, is the best part about the added graphics. The colors also fit in well with the existing map design. A custom Creedence Clearwater Revival graphic was created to round out the piece.
The back features some other elements of the secondary map that was used on the front. The border and the compass rose were both used in a new way here and it helps to tie together the theme with the front and the back of the sleeve.
Another CCR logotype appears at the top and it’s simply a modified, horizontal version of the graphic from the front of the record. The song titles are in a serif typeface that mimics the style you might find on a typical map. They feature just a little bit of distressing and that goes a long way to helping the overall theme while the lyrics appear in a softer-looking serif typeface that gives off an almost handwritten feel.
Epoch Vinyl 