The tone of this album emulates the unwillingness to accept that a relationship is well and truly over. The final design is meant to reflect the raw emotional tension of staying and leaving.
What You Want / What It Takes is a fictional album that represents the inner turmoil of staying in a troubled relationship or leaving. The line between hope and delusion is heavily blurred.
With the title in hand, I began by testing out various typefaces. Once I landed on the perfect one for this album, I experimented with different Photoshop techniques. None of them hit like they should have. So, having to pivot, I printed it out and wiggled it around on a scanner to get an interesting chromatic aberration look.
The colors from this would be the only color used throughout the identity of this album. Continuing with the scanner, I printed out other elements that I manipulated in Photoshop beforehand. I used the same technique of moving it around on the scanner as it scanned.
“What You Want / What It Takes” stands as a testament to the power of exploration and the unique narratives that can emerge from concept, design, and storytelling.
An identity was established, and the aesthetic felt tangible and recognizable. Exploration of techniques with scanning and applying threshold effects, was driven by a desire to visually capture that tension between hope and reality.