OUGD406 STUDIO BRIEF 1 - SECRET 7" RESEARCH

WHAT IS SECRET 7"?

Secret 7" is an annual event that combines music and art for a good cause. They select 7 tracks from 7 of the best known musicians. They select 100 different designs for each track, which have been created by designers and creative from around the world and print them individually on 7" vinyl. 700 sleeves are exhibited at the final exhibition which lasts for a month, this year at Somerset House, London, and each are sold for £50. You only find out who designed the sleeve and for what track it is for until you have bought it, hence the name of the event, "SECRET" 7".

WHAT CHARITY ARE THEY SUPPORTING THIS YEAR?

This year their chosen charity is Nordoff Robbins, who transforms the lives of vulnerable children and adults through music therapy.

"Nordoff Robbins work with people with a range of challenges such as autism, dementia, depression and physical and learning disabilities. The therapy they provide helps many to communicate where they have struggled to do so previously. The results can have a profound impact on individuals, their families and all those around them. They carry out their work in their own music therapy centres, in schools, community centres, hospitals and care homes. They also train music therapists through their own Masters degree programme. We are delighted to support Nordoff Robbins in 2015." - Secret 7"

EXISTING WORKS
I started looking at some of Secret 7"'s past winning designs, to see what kind of designs and styles have previously won, as if a specific style continuously wins, perhaps I should aim my designs at a similar style as well.

These designs are all very interesting and different. A wide variety of medias have been used in the designs, from photography to paper cut designs, also a lot of digitally produced works. This has shown me that any style of design has a chance of winning, and any style as well, as this is only a small selection of winners, and they vary so much in style and design. 

This is a really interesting winning design, using contrasting colours red and blue, which are also primary colours, with the yellow beak. I like how there is a woman's face inside a baboon's body, and there also looks like there's some sort of squid floating in there as well. You can also see the skeleton as well, adding to the linear, yet also very bold design. The contrast between the linear spine and the vector style woman and squid creates an interesting combination of imagery within the design, yet the similar shades of the designs helps to merge them all together. 

This is another interesting design from Secret 7", which uses similar colours to the previous design. This looks like it could perhaps be produced using screen printing because of the blocky shapes and bold, clean colours. I like how unusual this design is, how it combines flamingoes and hands grasping onto a ledge, with dots and maybe some sort of fence as well. It's a very strange combination however the colours of the different aspects and the shapes and style of them all work together really well, even if the scaling of some items is out of proportion to the rest of the aspects, however this could be part of the message.

This design is so simple yet effective, where one side is pretty much identical to the other. The colours are also very simple and reflective of the content of which aeroplanes would normally exist, in the sky. The aeroplanes are also understated as they don't need to be big to have impact, and they appear as small objects in the sky most of the time anyway. The main focus of this design is the black rectangle in the middle of the design, which draws your attention immediately, which then leads you to the aeroplanes as well, which works very effectively as there is nothing else on this design except the aeroplanes and the rectangle.