Jazz on Film
Year Two Box Set Project
The Jazz on Film project in which we had to design consistently styled artwork for a box set of three DVDs. This included the covers, the on-disc designs, and the slipcase that contains them. We had to choose three jazz musicians and create designs that encapsulated the three musicians and elevated their works.
This project tackled a common challenge for graphic designers - working with unfamiliar subjects and ideas. The unfamiliar slowly became familiar with more and more research as I chose Bill Evans, Dizzy Gillespie, and Thelonious Monk.
After some initial research and iterations, I found that the instrument shapes themselves are very beautiful and can be used as a design element. After some experimentation, I decided to use the bell of the trumpet as the main visual element but abstract it so it covers musicians that perform with other instruments.
I used a 3D model of a trumpet to create that swirly pattern. I cut off the rest of the trumpet and created a shader that added stripes to the remaining shape. After further experimentation, I decided to recreate the screen printing effect for multiple reasons. Firsty, it encapsulates the colourful, harmonic chaos of jazz improvisation. Secondly, it mirrors sound waves travelling and bouncing around a space.
I decided to crop into parts of the larger image for the individual DVD designs to create the idea that each DVD is a part of a greater whole.