This album cover design for indie band Pasta Sauce's 2022 EP, Dearly Departing, was a creative dream. My starting point was just hearing one song, Hangups & Heartaches, from the EP, whose haunting, indie-folk sound inspired the mood board. The mood board is made up of the color palette, artistic style, and imagery I had in mind, and also prominently features some tattoo photos the band shared with me as thematic inspiration. I knew these images of animals that seemed to occupy a space between life and death—partially skeletal, yet moving through the natural world around them—would be central to my design.
The band loved the mood board, so I went full steam ahead with my concept sketch, and with just a few tweaks, the final piece was brought to life. I chose to render my three focal animals in transparent, ghost-like colors to hint at that theme of cyclical life and death, while also bringing in a sense of the otherworldly to the piece, which is further established by the dark, misty forest setting teeming with hidden life, such an insects and mushrooms. The heavy use of texture in the piece adds to the richness of the world it creates, while also nodding to the indie, DIY roots of the music. |
The back cover of the EP is minimal to keep the track list clear, but the leaf and dragon fly motifs from the front reappear on the back to create a sense of continuity and cohesion.
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The "PS" in a heart with an arrow through it that appears carved into a tree on the cover signifies the band name, Pasta Sauce, and the band liked it so much they asked for it to be turned into a logo design. The logo is a simple vector, but still has some of the rustic, "hand-carved" texture of the reference, which brings to mind the indie folk mood of their music.
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A few months after the EP was released, the band came back to me for a merch design. They requested the inclusion of the ghost fox from the cover art and of their dog, Pancake (an honorary band member). We decided to keep this piece as simple line art for ease of printing on various products, but the detailed, hand-drawn style and hand-lettering parallels the EP cover art and and evokes their indie folk sound.