Boy and Bear, Limit of Love
Album artwork and press shots for Australia's indie-folk band
Case study
For our most recent collaboration with Boy & Bear, for their Limit of Love album, we considered the many creative talents that are brought together during the process of producing an album and how we could conceptually show the process in the design of the vinyl, the CD and the poster.
We worked with layering some mesmerising imagery by the band's very own and talented Jon Hart.
Read Hide the full case study
Background
Headjam have been collaborating with Boy & Bear and their record label, Wonderlick entertainment since 2010 when we initially created the film clip ‘Mike and Sticks’. In 2012, Headjam again worked with the band to help promote their new album through press photographs that were used throughout 2012–2014 to promote tours and events.
In 2015, Headjam were again excitingly approached to collaborate with the band and to produce the album artwork, single artwork, posters, press photography and collateral for their album ‘Limit of Love’, that launched in the second half of 2015, to an array of media.
Objective
To ensure that the visual promotion of the album encapsulated the band’s record through a simplistic, modern-organic, holistic campaign. The design should act as a window into the music before people got to hear the record itself, ultimately, encouraging the purchase of the album.
Target Audience
Boy & Bear are well-known throughout Australia. This meant that the album artwork had to appeal to their broad audience whilst ensuring it encapsulated the band’s vision for the record as a whole.
Consumer Proposition
An intimate exploration into the sound and concepts of Boy & Bear.
Desired Consumer Response
‘I bought Boy & Bear’s new album. It’s as stunning as it looks’.
Creative Solution
Collaborating with musicians and other artists is one of the most rewarding processes you can go through as a creative, and this is one project where collaboration and a deep connection with the artists gave us incredible insights that enabled us to produce stunning, perfectly formed creative.
The image that we used for the cover of the album artwork is actually an image that was taken by the band’s keys and guitarist, Jon Hart, whose images have always inspired us at Headjam.
The image itself was mesmerising. When we first saw it, we couldn’t work out if this was a micro image taken of the ocean close-up, or if it was a macro view of the ocean taken from far away. We were questioning the perspective of the image, and the various layers felt like visual representations of the layers of music within the album.
We considered the process of creating an album and how it’s the coming together of many parts and talents, and we wanted to conceptually show this in the suite of collateral. Each piece of the ‘puzzle’; the vinyl, the CD and the poster, was a perfectly and precisely cropped piece of the mesmerising ocean image, meaning that each piece could be stacked on top of one another and they would be perfectly aligned.
This clever tiered approach to the design meant that fans would be able to purchase a deeper insight into the band’s process with the iteration of each product. The limited edition album provided the most intimate exploration of the photos and design, with two images printed on translucent plastic that created a double exposure type effect when removing the record from its sleeve.
We are proud to say it was such a stunning result that totally blew the boys away.
Following the production of the artworks and supporting collateral, we then took the boys on a bit of a road trip to take some awesome images for them to release to the press along with the promotion of their new album. Fun to work with, easy to shoot; these boys are a creative dream.
Evaluation
Boy & Bear couldn't possibly have had better success this year. Their album entered the ARIA chart at #1 and has been credited GOLD PLUS in sales, which is incredible. Their metro tour was completely sold out as was their regional tour, and they are now fulfilling a gruelling schedule of international shows. Headjam are so proud of the collaboration with Boy & Bear and the huge success they have garnered with their incredible album, 'Limit of Love'.
Don’t just take our word on their brilliance. Have a listen for yourself. Start to finish, no phones, no Facebook, just you, your headphones and the tunes:
iTunes = https://itunes.apple.com/au/al...
Spotify = https://play.spotify.com/artis...
Client
Boy and Bear
Project
Album artwork and press shots 2015
