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J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book2TABLE OF CONTENTSINTRODUCTION...................................................................................................................3ALBUM SELECTION...........................................................................................................4MIND MAP..................................................................................................................................5MOOD BOARD.......................................................................................................................6INITIAL VISUAL LANGUAGE.........................................................................................7SKETCHES...............................................................................................................................8NARROWING DOWN CONCEPTS............................................................................9FIRST DRAFT.........................................................................................................................10SOCIAL GOOD COMPONENT...................................................................................11SECOND DRAFT.................................................................................................................12FILM PHOTOGRAPHY DETOUR..............................................................................13FINAL DRAFT.........................................................................................................................14FINAL DELIVERABLES...................................................................................................15OVERALL REFLECTION..............................................................................................23REFERENCES AND RESOURCES........................................................................24

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book3INTRODUCTIONWhen I began thinking about what I wanted to accomplish with this album cover redesign project, I knew that I wanted to create a visual system that could represent the feeling and experience of creating a work of art rather than lyrical content. I chose to stray a bit outside of the standard guidelines of the project by picking an instrumental hip-hop album. I knew that an instrumental album would allow me to focus more completely on capturing that feeling. In the context of Donuts, the experience of creating an album is elevated to a heartbreaking extreme. James D. Yancey, known as J Dilla, produced nearly every track on this album from a hospital bed with only a Boss SP-303 sampler, a turntable, and several creates of records that were brought to him by his close friends and family. He suered from complications from lupus, and he knew that he had little time left to make music, so he poured all of his remaining energy into this album. With this cover redesign, I wanted to create visuals that celebrated the brilliance of J Dilla in his final moments by revising the major themes that can be drawn from the album: the idea of non-linear time and a confrontation with mortality. I wanted to create imagery that combined literal references to donuts with conceptual references to time and a lack of it. I also wanted to allude more specifically to the context of creating art while in a hospital bed without showing imagery that is explicitly dark or upsetting at first glance. In terms of packaging design, physical music releases are probably my greatest interest, so I had a very good idea of what elements I wanted to include with the vinyl copy of the album. I wanted to create a cohesive yet diverse set of images that could represent the content of the album and work well on a variety of physical deliverables. Donuts is a double LP, so I knew that I would need to create a double LP gatefold jacket with two custom inner sleeves. I also wanted to include an album insert because I always enjoy when physical albums include extra printed materials and art. Overall, quality craftsmanship and accuracy of included information were my main concerns when creating all deliverables.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book4ALBUM SELECTIONThe cover of this album is a photo of J Dilla that is a still from a music video which was shot a year prior to the album’s release in 2006. An alternate cover with a sketch of a donut shop was used for some vinyl record releases. These covers are generally well received by fans, and I think they are acceptable given the timing and situation in which they were designed. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of the portrait/music-video-still cover because it doesn’t represent the context of the album’s creation and it was created without much input from J Dilla. The designer of this album cover was mostly unaware of the severity of J Dilla’s illness and was not involved in the creation of the album in any capacity. I believe this limited the designer’s ability to create a cover that best represented the album.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book5MIND MAPThis mind map is generally a web of thoughts inspired by meaning inferred from track titles and use of samples to create thematic consistencies throughout the album. To create this mind map, I listened to the entire track list in order and wrote down any compelling lyrical content included in the samples. I then reflected on what I wrote and came up with a description of each major theme that I extracted from the track titles, samples, and tone of the production. These descriptions can be seen on the right side of the mind map.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book6MOOD BOARDThis mood board is a collection of album covers that I believed could indirectly inspire my methods of connecting visuals to music. These images or loosely arranged in a few dierent categories. On the left, there are photos of J Dilla, covers from similar instrumental hip-hop albums, and iconic covers from hip-hop albums created around the same time as Donuts. In the center, there is a group of some of my favorite album covers of all time, ranging a few dierent genres. The right side includes covers of albums that are sampled on Donuts. I used this as an exercise to determine why these covers work so well and what elements are essential to a great album cover. I decided that all of these covers create visual interest as a means to drive interest to the music and reflect the musical content. J Dilla — Donuts Mood Board

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book7INITIAL VISUAL LANGUAGEFor my initial visual language, I wanted to include gritty textures to reflect the low fidelity nature of the sampled audio and a hand-drawn illustrative feel. I chose images of donuts and sprinkles as my main literal visuals, and I wanted to include circular forms and the infinity symbol, which eventually morphed into the hourglass idea. Most of these elements did inspire my final product in a conceptual sense, but the visual look and feel did evolve into something more minimal and photographic than originally intended.Grainy, rough textures that match the sonic aesthetic of thealbum. (sampled, crunchy, low fidelity)Black and white as blank background colors for minimal compositions; pink and gold asdonut colors.Circles/donuts and infinity symbol represent the idea of non- lineartime that is present in the themes and track sequencing of the album.These are just related to the literal representation of the abstract concept of a donutrepresenting time.handwritten type for titles as a more personal- feeling option + neutral sans serif for othertext, mainly sample credits on the poster.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book8SKETCHESThese sketches mainly consist of illustrations of donuts, experimentation with representing limited time through illustration, and a combination of the two. Thematically, there is an idea of non-linear time present in the album. The album itself forms a perfect loop, as the last track flows seamlessly into the first. I partially interpreted this as a wish for infinite time or an infinite looping sequence of events, or maybe a request to stop time. I began to develop illustrations that reflect this idea: a broken clock and an hourglass that doesn’t function correctly. The hourglass became the more interesting option, and I created iterations that defy gravity, are shattered, or are laying on their side to stop the flow of the sand.I also wanted to try to represent the idea of time running out. This is how the idea of melting ice came into play. When you leave ice out, the clock is ticking once it starts melting, and once it is melted, its original form is gone. This first version of the ice sculpture was the ancient Roman Discus Thrower, which I chose because I wanted to humanize the ice while also including a circular form.The feedback that I received during this stage made me begin to consider a switch to photography over illustration for my final images. I thought about the possibility that I wouldn’t be able to convincingly render an ice sculpture through illustration, and the ice sculpture was an idea that I was encouraged to continue to develop in at least some capacity, which led me to begin experimentation with creating molds for physical ice sculptures.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book9NARROWING DOWN CONCEPTSAt this point, I was mostly working on illustrating a grid of donuts for the front cover and the Discus Thrower ice sculpture for the back cover. Based on feedback and my own reflection, I realized that I was not going to be able to push this version of my visual system as far as I needed to for a few reasons. I was attempting to combine elements that were too far removed from each other, both visually and conceptually, and I needed a way to bring two defining elements together in a more cohesive manner in both categories. I also realized that, if I were to make the switch to photography, the Discus Thrower sculpture would have been nearly impossible for me to create by myself.Because of this, I revisited the hourglass concept and decided to pursue another solution for my ice sculpture issue.FRONT COVER BACK COVER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book10FIRST DRAFTFor my first draft, I committed to the switch to photography. I also arrived at my final choices for front and back cover imagery: the simple hourglass concept and a donut made of ice. I connected these two concepts by using multicolored sprinkles to fill the hourglass and cover the ice donut. I used a plain white hourglass and white backdrops to evoke the hospital setting. The sprinkles saturated the scenes and became my main reference to donuts in a literal sense. I used a silicon donut mold to create my ice donut, and I completed my first photo session with the donut and the hourglass.The hourglass became the front cover, with the artist and title text in the top corners. The melting ice donut became the back cover and the image on the sample credits poster, which credits samples and production for each track in six columns of text that wrap around the donut in the top half of the poster. FRONT COVERBACK COVER CREDITS POSTER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book11SOCIAL GOOD COMPONENTBecause J Dilla suered from lupus, I decided that my social good component would benefit the Lupus Foundation of America, with all proceeds from vinyl sales being donated to lupus research. This fundraiser is promoted in a sticker on the vinyl copy, a postcard-sized informational card that comes inside the vinyl jacket, and an Instagram post.This fundraiser is also promoted through the heavy use of purple, which is the ocial color of lupus awareness, in the physical album materials. This redesign and rerelease concept was created as a 15-year anniversary special edition that was produced solely to promote this fundraiser.Special Edition15th AnniversaryRe-releaseAll proceeds fromphysical sales will bedonated to the LupusFoundation of America

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book12SECOND DRAFTIn this second draft, I used the photos I took in my first photo session to create initial versions of an Apple Music currently playing screen and banner. I also used these photos as placeholders for social media content because I needed to complete additional photo sessions. The first versions of my social good component materials were then completed. I used a shade of pink selected from a photo of the multicolored sprinkles as the color of the sticker and informational card text.STREAMING SERVICE BANNERSOCIAL MEDIA SLIDESCURRENTLYPLAYINGCOVER STICKER INFORMATIONAL CARD

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book13FILM PHOTOGRAPHY DETOUROnce I had digital photos of all of my main elements, I opted to do a film photography session to capture the same photos on film. I hoped to bring in an additional element of grain and grittiness to the photography, just as I had intended in my original visual language. However, I felt that the results of the film photos took away from the sanitary, plain-white environment I had created in the digital photos. Additionally, the purple hues in these photos did not contrast enough with the blues, which proved to be a huge problem that clashed with my social good component concept.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book14FINAL DRAFTFor my final draft, I made minor changes to the elements shown in my previous drafts and introduced new deliverables. My front and back album covers remained unchanged from the first draft, and I completed my double LP gatefold jacket by adding an inside with a track list and a purple spine. I made minor typesetting adjustments to the sample credits poster and created record labels that are color coded based on sprinkle colors. Also, I changed the color of all of my social good component materials from pink to purple, and I added the social good element to my social media materials.I did one final photo session to create a time lapse of the ice donut melting for social media. I wanted to integrate the time lapse into the physical vinyl copy, so I made custom inner sleeves that include images from the time lapse. These sleeves are color coded to match the record labels. Finally, I created an album insert that has a photo of the hourglass on the front and the track list on the back.VINYL JACKETRECORD LABELSALBUM INSERTCREDITS POSTER CURRENTLY PLAYINGSTREAMING SERVICE BANNERSOCIAL MEDIA SLIDESSOCIAL GOOD COMPONENTINNER SLEEVE (A & B SIDES) INNER SLEEVE (C & D SIDES)

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book15FINAL DELIVERABLESFor the final deliverables, I printed and assembled all of the vinyl packaging materials. I decided to drop the color coding and change all of the record labels and inner sleeves to the same purple hue that is on the spine and inside of the vinyl jacket. All other materials remained as they were in the final draft.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book16FINAL DELIVERABLESFRONT COVER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book17FINAL DELIVERABLESBACK COVER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book18FINAL DELIVERABLESINSIDE AND INNER SLEEVES

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book19FINAL DELIVERABLESCREDITS POSTER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book20FINAL DELIVERABLESRECORD LABEL

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book21FINAL DELIVERABLESSTREAMING SERVICE CURRENTLY PLAYING SCREEN & BANNER

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book22FINAL DELIVERABLESINSTAGRAM POST MOCKUPS

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book23OVERALL REFLECTIONI went into the earlier stages of this project wanting to create illustrations for all of the visual elements that I used, but I am happy with the photography and how it aected the outcome. I don’t think my concept would have come across as easily if all of the images were illustrated, so photography was definitely the correct choice. It also allowed me to ensure that I had enough time to physically create all of the materials that I wanted because the photography took less time than the illustrations would have.I also think that I achieve all of my initial goals. I was able to successfully create a cohesive system that referenced the context of the album’s creation without being outwardly dark at first glance. The craftsmanship present in all of my physical deliverables is relatively good considering the materials I had to work with, although I did have some problems gluing my pieces together.Throughout this process, I learned a lot about printing — I only had to print my vinyl jacket one time, but I think I was just lucky that it turned out how I wanted it to on the first print. I did have some trouble printing my inner sleeves and my record labels, but I fixed all of my mistakes. Overall, I’m very happy with the finished product, and I don’t think there’s much that I would change if I had more time or could restart the project.

J DILLA — DONUTSAlbum Cover Redesign Process Book24REFERENCES AND RESOURCESTemplates for all physical deliverables found on standardvinyl.comDiscogs.com used for information about previous vinyl releases of Donuts. Whosampled.com used to gather information about samples used on Donuts.Vinyl copy of Plastic Beach by Gorillaz used as a template for copyright information and barcode.