Inventing Lives

A hard rock band from London, TIDES are a powerhouse of heavy riffs, odd timings and topical lyrics. I worked with the band to design album art and vinyl packaging for their debut EP, Inventing Lives.

Goals

Reflect lyrical themes from the songs and the title ‘Inventing Lives’.
Create a creepy, mysterious aesthetic without it being too dark, scary or generic.

Challenges

Bringing a complex idea to life with limited access to budget and equipment.
Creating a cover that helped the band stand out from the thousands of other bands in London.

Solutions

Play-Doh! Well, that and fondant icing moulds!

Client

TIDES

Scope

Art Direction
Packaging
Print Design
Cover Art

Cool Points

Created with a small, London-based record printer.

Ideation

The process started by sitting down with the band to discuss any initial ideas. We created a mood board and developed 3 concepts through brainstorming and sketching. From there we landed on the final idea.

Creation

The aesthetic of the final artwork was achieved by forming Play-Doh figures with fondant icing moulds, taking multiple pictures, and then stitching them all together in Photoshop.

Album Art

The album art portrays the idea of breaking the mould and not letting others define your life. The EP released digitally and a limited number of 12” gatefold vinyl sleeves were printed on matte coated card.