Taz Taylor - My second album cover for this great guitarist and songwriter.
What a tough task to come up with a cover to match a real creative album title. Taz was very complimentary and excited about the first album design I worked on 'Straight Up', so the pressure was on to ensure that this would be as good.
I started as I usually do when it comes to an album design - Sketch ideas, re-visit and re-scan, re-sketch and 'work-up' the album visual. Once I am happy, I go to various photographic stock sites - I spend a couple of hundred pounds a month with subscriptions, so have access to hundreds of assets. Back in the seventees, you had to hire a photographer, or if you had a great camera, go out and shoot various scenes yourself. Then it was a question of constructing the scene and shooting that. It could take five to seven days and a huge budget just to get assets together - A scene was never perfectly shot, so always weeks of work afterwards. Today, it much cleaner, and the extra time it took for the lengthy process is saved - that time can be focussed on the creation process. Some say, that its not so creative getting various photo-elements together from a stock site. I can see no difference. The initial visual/scene is created on paper, so I know exactly what type of building and/or the subject I require. I see it all in my mind. In some ways its trickier and more creative getting the scene right as everything has to be manipulated. I am paying the professional stock library for pre-shot images as opposed to 'setting the scene' in real life - It's very much a virtual world - I guess a comparison is Analogue recording compared to Digital - Something is lost along the way but you have to work harder to get the warmth back. My style is 'attention to detail' and I work very hard to put that 'warmth' and 'energy' back into the composition. 80% enthusiasm and passion.
Taz was knocked out by the design and I was extremly pleased with how it all went - If you look carefully, there is a lot going on in the scene. Mystery and intrigue.
Issue 65 - Sept/Oct 2014
Tris, I just wanted to write back immediately to let you know that I am totally blown away by the quality of what I am looking at, and the fact that you turned this around so incredibly quickly after our last communication !
Taz Taylor, from Taz Taylor Band