tragic kingdom:
lp redesign
photo design fall 2023
A redesign of the LP cover of the album Tragic Kingdom by No Doubt, placing emphasis on the successful pairing of typography with photography.
original design
The original cover of the album features a photo taken in the band’s native home of Orange County, California, in an orange grove. There is a sense of eccentricity with the positioning of Stefani at the forefront of the cover with a rotten orange while the other band members are looking pensive in a dead orchard in the back. The rotting oranges with the fruit flies on the cover also give that erratic feeling in combination with the other elements.
mood board
First I created the mood board, which incorporated mainly colorful feminine imagery. I wanted the feeling to be sulky, but still have an eccentric pop, similar to the original cover. I wanted to keep my interpretation of the cover focused on more of the moody tortured feeling, but still playful.
cover photography
For the cover photography I wanted to capture the pop rock genre and combine that with the theme of female stereotyping explored through one of the album’s leading songs, “Just A Girl”. I had my sister model for a portrait, a scene depicting the redundancy of the production of getting ready. The image highlights the exhaustion of women always being reduced to their appearance.
typographic iterations
Most of the typographic iterations were done using a black and white version of the photo, because I wanted to focus on how I could bring in color and an aspect of dreamy playfulness. I experimented with different typefaces and layouts before I determined how this could be best communicated.
visual guide
The typefaces used for the album cover are Filmotype Zanzibar and Futura PT. I chose Filmotype Zanzibar to fit the tortured feminine aesthetic, and paired that with a more neutral Futura PT. The imagery in the photos were pink-heavy, and I wanted to make the typography blue to represent stereotypical gender roles as well as serve as a contrast.
