Design Studio: Cat Power

ALBUMS I LIKE

These are my favourite albums of all time. Cat Power's "The Greatest"

Devendra Banhart's "What Will We Be", The Doors Debut, Black Key's "Brothers",

Fleetwood Mac's "Rumours" and Patti Smith's "Horses".

I find that if I choose an artist and album that I love, I will be further driven to design

something great and meaningful.

I have decided to go with Cat Power because her music is lesser known, more personal and most importantly, the album designs are quite amateur. Because she has a large and impressive body of work, I would like to make a Box Set Collection.

Cat Power's audience are quite Indie, and 'bluesy'. They are blues enthusiasts and creative minds. Cat Power's decade long career and multiple styles has garnered her a wide variety of audiences. Ranging from corporate business people to arts students.

When listening to Cat Power's music, I think of textures dually rough and soft. Her voice is a peculiar one that through it's soft delivery contains rough undertones. It reminds me of charcoal. Her songs also reference nudity, sex and love. These themes remind me of figure drawings and nudes.

The pure acoustic nature of her music and lyrical references to horses is also quite cinematic.

Here are some examples of CD packaging that I find intriguing. I like the use of metaphor.

I think for this assessment, I will produce a box that will contain both the CD holder and a book.

Here is a scanned sketch of Cat Power I created. I used charcoal to try and reflect the feel of her music. She looks quite sombre as most of her music is blues and about the loss of love. In turn it is about enjoying life, just like she enjoys the cigarette in her hand, although it is not necessarily good for her, for the moment, it will do.

I desaturated and cropped the sketch. Played around with the contrast.

I found these images on the internet. I would like to allocate a section of her work to each image. Music about herself to the nude. Songs about relationships could perhaps be used for the two faces. Songs about places and lifestyle put with the city sketch. And songs about blues and freedom to the horses.