21 Fake Album Covers
An Exercise/Personal Challenge in Creating a Variety of Album Art Styles
Every so often a creative challenge makes the rounds on social media, the rules of which are:
1. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
1. Go to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random. The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.
2. Go to http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php. The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.
3. Go to http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days. Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use Photoshop or similar image-editing software to put it all together.
5. Post it to your blog or social media of choice, and tag the friends you want to join in!
I've done this a few times, sometimes multiple designs in a batch. It's always fun, and satiate a desire for design practice. Half the fun of it is seeing what random elements are initially generated, and contemplating if they'll work well.
Certainly I'm selective in this process, choosing only those combinations that seem plausible as a real band name and/or album title and/or a good cover (with a few silly exceptions). However, there are no mixing or matching of any of the three elements when I do multiple designs at the same time. Again, creating each one's combination of randomized elements as they were originally generated is half the fun!
In this same fashion, they will now be presented to you chronologically in the way I found—and subsequently designed—them. I did my best to make each one look significantly different from those that precede them.
In this same fashion, they will now be presented to you chronologically in the way I found—and subsequently designed—them. I did my best to make each one look significantly different from those that precede them.
The first one of these I ever did came out of the gate with a bang. (Pun not intended.)
I did my initial search of some of these just after Christmas, hence the subject matter of the photo (and couple others you'll see down the line here in a moment). I decided to give this a bit of an indie/alternative design, as I felt both the photo and band name had that sort of vibe.
Purely a silly entry, when all the elements were opened, the combination made me snort-laugh too hard to pass up. As you can see, the result is a Christmas themed country/blues album, featuring design circa 1994.
Is "Doland, South Dakota" just the pseudonym of the performer(s), or did an entire city of approximately 200 come together to create this thing? The world may never know.
Is "Doland, South Dakota" just the pseudonym of the performer(s), or did an entire city of approximately 200 come together to create this thing? The world may never know.
Another indie/alternative entry. Band name/logo modified from Colonna MT.
Original image source no longer available.
Original image source no longer available.
This is probably my most favorite, as—even though there are a few you'll see in this list—this one seems the most legitimate to me. I'm really happy with the layout and typography, including the little decorative leaf glyphs that were added at the last minute, which really tie it up.
Honestly, this is one of the combos that came together so well it almost seems too good to be true. When I saw the quote, I knew it would be great regardless, because the photo could literally be anything and work with the album title. But then I got this photo, and it gave it this sort of tongue-in-cheek quality that makes it all the better. I'm really glad it turned out so well.
The portion of the quote I used is actually "wait until I am wrong", but I felt it flowed better when abbreviated to "I'm".
Original image source no longer available.
Because this band's name is also "Battle of…", I had initially contemplated dropping it for fear it was too similar to that of the "Battle of Fahl" entry above. But I really liked it nonetheless, and who's to say it's not plausible for there to be more than one band in this world with a name prefixed "[The] Battle of"?
So anyway, due to these similarities, I did what I could to make sure both the "Battle of…" logotypes didn't end up too similar, which I think I pulled off well. I'd actually toyed with the idea of somehow making the text hover partially in front of the mirror to have it reflect. Needless to say, a few problems presented themselves with that, and I ended up going without the fancy special effects. I honestly think it's better for it.
Original image source.
12. Every Breath I Breathe by Nallajerla
This is another one where I initially tried to get crazy elaborate with the typography, then ended up finding that less was more.
I don't know—an alternative rock/ska album or something? I really liked the band name for this one when it came up, but was initially disappointed when the image loaded. I still really wanted to use the band name, though, and seeing as I wasn't going to break the rules and had create the album from the combo given, I went for it. I think it turned out well.
Original image source no longer available.
This is another favorite. I really like the logotype I came up with, and actually had to choose out of a few variants:
Probably the least exciting of the bunch. I had really high hopes for it, and felt like it was really going to be great. Instead it came out a bit generic. Oh well—they can't all be winners!
Original image source no longer available.
17. A Waste of Time by RLPR
Featuring a custom pixel-art logo (seen as a sort of watermark in the lower right corner), that I then blew up and smoothed out to interesting effect.
Original image source no longer available.
Possibly a (stand-up) comedy album?
Original image source no longer available.
21. Life's Small Joys by AS Kabasha
The band name/logo on this one is another piece of pixel-art made entirely from scratch. I figured I may as well go out with something unique for the final entry of its batch.
