Process and Inspiration

For this project, I wanted to test my skills on an album cover. Music is one of my greatest passions, so it was only natural I’d absolutely love working on art and design like this. Greatly inspired from the feel, look, and tone of hard rock and alternative from the 2000s, this album showcases design steeped in rock, pain, and angst. The blooming inky patterns are reminiscent of Rorschach test and the brain scans show more oddly beautiful shapes and inverted colors. The great inspiration for this passion project that I’d be remiss not to mention is an album cover for the band “Breaking Benjamin,” that features a brain scan in a hauntingly beautiful image. My take on this idea is this almost evolution as the scans morph into the skull and the person that the brain belongs to. Having had struggled with medical problems for many years, it felt cathartic for me to pour the feelings into what I’d imagine my life album to look like or sound like. The fictional “band’s” name “Gray Matter” is a pun, referencing the gray matter in the brain itself, and the gray matter of wanting answers and cures during painful or undiagnosed health problems. The “parental advisory” sticker was a darkly funny finishing touch to this, trying to show that life and a person’s struggles are far from G-rated.