"Don't Look Down" Spotify Cover

This project marks a huge milestone in my career, as it is not only my first design that will be published on Apple Music, Spotify, and other streaming services, but also my first music project to be released. Live From Mars is a  Madison based jazz-inspired space rock band that I have been a part of for over a year, and have taken on as a project to create a visual identity for in order to push myself as a designer. 

The song depicts a journey of flight, and of feeling the thrill of self discovery and development, all while urging the listener to not "look down," or second guess themselves. I wanted to evoke above all else a sense of acceleration and height, so I made the focal point of the cover a rocket accelerating into space. I originally designed the basic shapes in watercolors in order to have a textured and abstract feel to the cover, which suits the band's looser improvisational style. I opted then to digitally enhance the painting to make it more recognizable, by adding small details such as a glow behind the smoke at the bottom and a more extended body for the rocket. Finally, I threw in some small details to make the cover feel complete, such as our logo behind the red dot representing Mars, and a space photo courtesy of Will Jarvis, our resident drummer and astrophysicist.