An introductory exercise to this brief allowed us to experiment with idea generation using last years competition songs, of which I chose the St Vincent track Digital Witness. As a starting point for this I listened to the song and briefly research it's background. I found that when the song was released there were conflicting opinions from both the artist and the fans about the meaning behind the song: St Vincent (Annie Clark) herself had aimed to portray someone who's need for attention and affirmation online has evolved into a media addiction, resulting in a person disconnected from the real world and the beginnings of a 'zombie' generation. However, many listeners felt that the over saturated, manic sound of the pop track did not align with the altogether mundane and banal use of social media today - the majority of online media users simply view it as a tool to keep up with family, friends, and the news.
Regardless of these opinions, the cover design should reflect the tone of the track, and so my initial ideas revolved around the use of bright and/or contrasting colours. Having been tasked with sketching out two designs, one obvious and one ambiguous, I looked at how I could rearrange the letters of the track title in a grid formation, as a way of replicating the grid of pixels on a computer screen, for an obvious response.
However, a reminder of the competition rules showed that the track title could not be used in a competition submission, so I looked at how I might disguise the letters. I looked at the use of binary code and found that this gave a more obviously 'digital' feel. Two designs came from this idea - either the title track would be written out in binary code (top) or the entire track-listing could be spelled out across the entire surface of the cover (bottom)
For a more ambiguous response I wanted to play with the idea of a computer user becoming a zombie, and immediately recalled 'the blue screen of death' that appeared on VCR machines and some older models of computers when something was disconnected or there was a malfunction with the machine. The intense blue colour would provide a simple but shocking design, and again the title of the track could be written in binary or in scrambled code in the bottom right hand corner.
