Photoblog 4: It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water

Graphic Design:

It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water

I chose to evaluate the graphic design choices of an album cover, as I see album covers frequently every day. The goal of an album’s cover artwork is to convince potential buyers that the album is interesting or worth investment. Album covers face a very interesting side of graphic design in that the artist is both attempting to sell the album while also conveying the feelings and moods of the music within the album. The album cover I have chosen to evaluate is for the album “It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water” by The Microphones .

The Microphones was a musical project by Phil Elverum that began in 1997 and lasted until 2003 (Elverum continues to write music under the project Mount Eerie). It Was Hot, We Stayed In the Water was released in 2000 and had its share of cult appraisal. The first aspect of graphic design that we will examine is contrast. Immediately, contrast is highly visible in the album art. The cover is a collage of various cut photographs, coming together to display an ocean along with a sunset. The rather chaotic arrangement of the collage along with the font choice give a youthful sense of playfulness. The complementary color choices of blue and orange are appealing as they are in natural sunsets over the ocean. This design choice is successful in conveying the playful yet spacious and beautiful aspect of much of the music. Elverum is no stranger to noisy experimentation, and the crashing waves of the ocean are sometimes parallel to his musical nature.

The cover manages a lovely balance in its color coordination and with the size of the paper clippings. The larger clippings are purer colors, and draw in the eyes. The orange and blue are balance in a simple and pleasing way. The nature of the cover in itself is appealing and is successful at drawing attention. The cover uses the larger clippings to control the rhythm of the artwork as our eyes are first drawn to the purer blue and orange colors. The clouds in the upper region of the artwork stick out and draw our attention, which is then lead further down eventually to the band name. With the band name likely being the last thing a viewer would see due to the rhythm of the image, the cover allows the viewer to process the whole image before leaving them with the band’s name in their memory.

The artwork is unified in its theme of clipped photographs and in its complementary color palette. The style is consistent and successful in its design choices. Overall, this album cover is interesting and uniquely made. Graphically, it does a very good job of both conveying the atmosphere of the album as well as intriguing viewers under the main elements of graphic design.