The who
Natasha Moszenin
Natasha is a composer and songwriter, based in Melbourne Victoria. She describes her work as jazz lyrical.
My role
Graphic Designer
Tools
Illustrator, Photoshop
The request
Natasha Moszenin wanted a cover and lyrics booklet for her debut album - Sleepless daughters.
Creating the cover
Initial concept ideas
The songs on the album have themes of love, loss, insomnia, isolation, and depression. I initially proposed options using black and white free-to-use photography, that evoke a sense of isolation, darkness and being inside one’s own mind.
Whilst the client thought these options were strong she described her own insomnia as feeling like she was in a blue/purple haze. It was this idea that influenced the final design.
Finding the right image
I found this foggy/brooding image by Soroush Karimi on Unsplash.com. A woman stands by herself looking out into a sea of thick fog and uncertainty… it felt right.
Manipulating the original image was a fun challenge. After applying colour and texture layers it was clear that the lonely lady in the shadows was still too hidden in the dark.
I went back to tweaking the original image to bring the lonely lady out of the shadows. I had to strike the balance between what prints well (for the physical CD cover printing) and also what looks good digitally (as the digital thumbnail for the album would be used on streaming platforms etc).
With the power of Photoshop, the original dark fog is lifted to reveal a woman by herself in a dream-like atmosphere. It incorporates Natasha’s colour requests and I love this canvas texture, almost like she could have been up all night painting her own aimless wondering.
The final cover
Natasha wanted a lyric booklet to come with the album, as her lyrics are poetry written by herself and other poets. Due to the small size of a CD booklet, I recommended she use lyric extracts instead of full song lyrics so that the font could be larger for the reader.
I wanted the booklet cover to look like it was the scribblings of an insomniac, up all night writing thoughts that become lyrics and doodling as they stay awake. It uses the same canvas texture as the front cover to carry that texture and aesthetic into the booklet.
Inside the booklet, images were manipulated in Photoshop to have a photo negative (total inversion) look to them. Like they are a snapshot into someone’s mind at the time of reading the words.
The outcome
Natasha’s Sleepless Daughters album is available to listen to and buy on bandcamp.com. You can listen to Natasha’s songs on Spotify too.
Yes, that’s me singing on Track 9 - Love is a restless heart… enjoy!