OUAN503 - Secret 7" - Tame Impala, The Less I Know The Better

This record sleeve for Tame Impala's song 'The Less I Know the Better' was one of the most fun to make because the process to make it was a lot different from the others. It essentially involved a combination of photography and digital techniques to create the final image with a little bit of experimentation and colour correction. As well as this I had looked closely at the kind of work that was produced by and for the band themselves, not that the brief required you to stay within the themes of the band but I did was to be somewhat reflective of the band's style. Due to the band's approach to music videos and record covers I looked into patterns and other kinds of 'experimental' visuals, all that could contribute to the strength of the final record sleeve image that I was creating.

The initial concept I had thought up was going to be either successful or not work at all. I wasn't sure whether it would work or not because I had never attempted anything like this before. The idea included the use of a person or people and a close up shot of their face or faces before illustrating patterns and diagrams over the top. I wasn't sure if I wanted to keep the drawings contained within the area of the face or all of the sleeve until I started. The idea developed further as the imagery came together and I had the photograph I was going to be working with. Eventually as I started working into the photograph I decided to create a mask and work into that specifically so I had other areas on the image to create patterns and experiment with different shapes. The technique used to achieve the final image was that the black mask was painted in Photoshop and made to fit better using the opacity tool and the 'multiply' blending option. After this shapes were erased from the layer featuring the mask so the shapes revealed the face underneath. I wanted everything to be as neat an organised as possible so it took a few ours of trial and error regarding the shapes that were removed until it looked relatively clean and I was happy with the way it looked. Once this was complete it was simply a case of adjusting the colours so the image meshed a bit better and everything complimented each other. I used the tablet pen to go back and forth horizontally on the canvas with a thick brush and this created a kind of choppy segmented effect that was then blended using one of the layer blending options over the top. This came after several attempts at creating interesting shapes over the top of the photograph. Finally, I thought the image required some form of framing so I took a speckled brush with a very small pixel width and created a triangle shape by duplicating it multiples times and arranging it. This eventually led to the triangular boarder that can be seen in the final image.

In summary this image was the most experimental I had done up to this point in the brief, although I was trying quite a few techniques this was the first time I had worked in this particular way and I think overall it was quite successful. I enjoyed having a strong starting point for the image rather than a blank canvas. In addition it allowed me to look at lighting and other settings in combination with the lens type when taking the photograph. I haven't used much photography in my work recently other than for research purposes so it was equally refreshing in this sense and enjoyable at the same time. I think this technique of working on top of photographs could be applied to a range of other illustration and design work so I shall definitely try to keep it in my inventory for tackling certain design problems in the future.

Tame Impala - The Less I Know The Better