Black Sabbath Secret 7″ | 2014
The design featured above was an accepted submission for Secret 7″, an annual event based in London, England, that calls on artists from around the world to submit artwork for a chance to claim the cover of a one of a kind seven inch record sleeve. Creatives have the opportunity to interpret at least one of seven selected songs from the biggest names in music from the past and present. The record sleeves, if chosen, are put up for auction at the event, and all proceeds go on to benefit that year's chosen charity or foundation.
Secret 7″ provides a great challenge to artists and designer because viewers and recipients will not know what song or musician is on the record until they have purchased the record. With this in mind, it is up to the designers to create artwork that speaks to the meaning and attitude of the song they are interpreting without explicitly stating the name of the musician(s) or song title.
In 2014, one of the tracks featured by Secret 7″ was Age of Reason by Black Sabbath from their new album entitled 13. Despite being a fan of Black Sabbath's music for many years, I listened to the song several times in order to find an part of the song to interpret. The inspiration for my design derives from the verse in the song which reads;
"Politics, religion
Love of money too
It's what the world was built for
But not for me and you, oh yeah"
The grim imagery retains the dark, ominous feeling typically associated with Black Sabbath and their music. The final image was rendered by first creating an ink drawing slightly larger than the seven inch by seven inch dimensions, which would be scanned in and scaled to the proper size. All color and other embellishments would later be added in Adobe Photoshop.