Saturday 14 February 2015

Studio Brief 1 - Research - Secret 7

Studio Brief 1 - Design Practise, Professional Practise - Secret 7 
Research - Secret 7 

Secret 7 is an annual competition that takes 7 tracks from well-known musicians and then invite creatives from around the world to interpret these tracks in their own unique and individual way, 100 designs for each track are then selected and made into limited edition sleeves and sold for £50 a piece to raise money for a selected charity. These 700 sleeves are exhibited for the public and then sold on record store day. The innovative concept is that the buyers don't know who created the sleeve or which song it is for until they have purchased their limited edition vinyl. 

This year secret 7's chosen charity is Nordoff Robbins. This charity works with people with a range of challenges such as dementia, autism and learning difficulties. Their range of terrify programmes helps to provide support with communication and social interaction. The results are said to have a high impact on not only the individuals but their families and friends. They are heavily involved with the music industry as a charity as they hold their own music therapy centres in local community environments and train therapists to an extremely high standard through their masters degree programme, this makes Nordoff Robbins an excellent choice of charity that will truly benefit from the donations raised through the secret 7 competition. 

A vast selection of designers from a range of backgrounds have been selected and exhibited in the past years of secret 7, from students (including Students from Leeds College of Art) to children and professionals such as David Shrigley all exhibiting their original artworks for charity. Below highlights a number of successful artworks that have been exhibited in past years. 


I like this artwork as it uses the simple use of circles to create an intricate and aesthetically pleasing design. The unparalleled waves give the piece a abstract quality that connotes nature and a sense of peace. I would assume this song is very rhythmic and has an acoustic quality, from the flowing nature of the waves. I like the use of colour here, the artist uses darker colours such as brown to contrast the highly luminous circles giving the piece an overall cheerful and lighthearted vibe. 


I like the use of simplistic vector imagery in this design. The imagery clearly depicts the song 'get it on' by T-rex and proves as an example that the final designs don't have to be highly decorated and produced using a range of elaborate techniques. I like the use of a minimal colour palate, using two tones of black to make up the dial, this is then contrasted with the white symbols and red is incorporated to firstly represent the on switch and secondly to add some eye-catching colour to the piece. I feel this is a good example of a modernist piece that is present within the exhibition as the majority of the works derive from postmodernist techniques. 


The bright and colourful nature of this piece screams fun, the gradient pink background contrasts nicely with the green leaves. The narrative of the image is very abstract however I feel this leeds itself well to the abstract nature of the illustrations. I think this design embodies the nature of the secret 7 competition extremely well as it is a unique expression of the track that is both intriguing and aesthetically pleasing, it also creates enigma as to which track the image is depicting that will only be revealed once the sleeve has been purchased. I like the composition of the image as a whole the bight colours create a balanced foreground and the gradient works well not to overpower the background of the image.

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