Final Project Presentation: Timeless

The theme of my album cover design is Timeless — great music is timeless, so is great ideas and arts.

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Hans Zimmer, as one of the most distinctive film music composers of all time, creates music that is both classic and contemporary, timeless yet fresh. So is Leonardo Da Vinci’s genius works.


Design Inspiration

For those who are not so familiar with Leonardo DaVinci. He is a leading figure of the Italian Renaissance, a period ignited by humanism and sees an explosion of new ideas in literature, philosophy, art, music, politics, science, religion, and other aspects of intellectual inquiry.

As a phenomenal painter, Da Vinci’s most notable works include, the Mona Lisa, and The Last Supper, as well as The Baptism of Christ. He developed the linear perspective, new oil paints and other techniques to render a more natural reality in painting.

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As an engineer, he expanded human capacities under water, inventing swimming fins and submarines, and his imagination live in the sky, designing flying machines and parachutes, all far ahead of his time.

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As a scientist, he was also a pioneer in studying human anatomy. He dissected over 30 corpses to find out what enables us to move, how the heart powers us and even how we look like before we are born.

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His contributions are so vast and cover so many disciplines that it is impossible to include everything in one square. So I carefully selected 7 to put in the album cover design: the Jesus reaching out for something, the lady with the most admired smile, the wings he had long designed for flying, and also less obvious ones, the sketches of human flesh, bones and our initial form from his notes. Finally everything is arranged in to the frame of The Vitruvian Man – the ideal human proportion draw by Da Vinci.

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These elements are chosen not only because they are most famous, but they also each represented one aspect of the genius and his time: the God, the man; the mystery, the truth; the dream and the self. All of them is created after painstaking observation which I think we could learn from him as artists, scientists and engineers.


Design Principle

My challenge is to arrange them all in a single balanced design. It has to be faithful to the original works while show my own creativity and understanding of the genius.

First, dissecting the elements of design, I chose lines and geometric shapes to create forms so it looks consistent even without colour. As suggested by Cheryl, I added contrast between them by changing the border thickness when drawing in Adobe Illustrator. The repetition of lines in the the pair of wings created rhythm and a strength of extension. These two principles, along with the colouring, give the drawing more depth and sense of three dimensional.

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Then we look at the space inside these two squares. I used closure more than one time to add interests to the frame. You can see it more clearly on the line draft, especially the triangles created by the body segments. You can also notice the variation between the front and back. It is because I want to focus you to different points: the brain of our future and the music list in which I have put a code.

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Next move to the principles of design, I chose to design a symmetric piece because there is no special emphasis of the elements or a strong emotion behind the thesis, but harmonious and balance. The elements are enclosed in the many regular shapes in this piece. The CD diameter is exactly of golden ratio to the album size. So is the eye in the head of the portrait. Compared to the God, the dominant part in the CD circle is the man, the real and the anatomy. The dynamic nature of the design also contributes to draw your attention to it. 

I applied proximity and similarity to the layout at back — that the related content is organised closely together. Following the index is the music titles and the film in which it is featured.

The greatest challenge is in colouring. I chose the most pervasive complement two colours in the nature – green and brown. The gold is also used to add holiness and freshness. As the artist himself also favour these natural colours in his paintings and sketches, this colour scheme allows me to be close to his original ideas. It also creates a feeling of warmth and natural.

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Design Process

Speaking of the process, the areas I studied in ADM Library during the previous four weeks have all played an essential part in my design.

Learning from the Ancient Egyptian paintings enabled me to abstract the original works of Da Vinci and create his portraits in the ancient flat style. The symmetry layout is originated from the Baroque style characterised as sophisticated and dramatic. While the floral pattern and three dimensional sense conveyed by the colouring is from my observation of caisson ceiling in traditional Chinese architecture.

ceiling1  ceiling2 4-blue-gold

Finally it is alive with a mechanic design so we can better view the natural transition of colour in the background. You can see it is a deign combining art and music, probably a bit math and engineering from my background. It is an idea born with time but the inspirations imposed is timeless. Through it, I pay homage to the great men, who might not have changed history, but at least warned the destiny of mankind.

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I really learned a lot and enjoyed this fun project. Many thanks to Cheryl’s advices along the way!!!!

Author: Skye Yang

Hey I am a Programmer and Graphic Designer!

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