A Gothic Beauty

The Archive — Graphic Design

Sleeves for records nobody asked me to make.

Four studies — unofficial concept work

Four self-directed cover studies. The brief each time was the same one I set myself: build the world the record already implies, then let the sleeve sit inside it rather than on top of it.

None of this is commissioned, licensed, or affiliated with the artists or their labels. Where an official cover appears inside a composition, it is used as reference material for a personal design exercise, not presented as my own.

Reign — a cyanotype-blue sleeve in which a figure dissolves into a dense bed of roses, with a yellow ankh pendant and chain at the center, inside a distressed print border ReignCover — Study I
PrinceReign — cover
Study I

Reign

A tribute sleeve for Prince

Cover · Duotone · Tribute

The only piece here built from nothing borrowed. A figure lowered into a bed of roses until the two stop being separate things — the face reads as a bloom before it reads as a face.

  • Cyanotype blue holds everything; yellow is reserved for the chain and the ankh, so the eye lands on the symbol first.
  • The roses are scaled inconsistently on purpose — the bed reads as depth rather than as pattern.
  • A distressed plate edge and inner rule frame it like a print pulled from a damaged negative.
Study II

Compton

A poster environment for To Pimp a Butterfly

Poster · Photo Montage · Monochrome

A black-and-white montage the record could be hung inside. Built first as a standalone sheet, then re-cut with a record sleeve dropped into the middle to test whether the surround still held.

  • Blackletter “Compton” sits inside a knocked-out silhouette of Africa — the album's two geographies in one shape.
  • The handwritten tracklist runs as graffiti across the asphalt, so the credits read as environment instead of as a panel.
  • Full monochrome throughout; the only hierarchy available is scale and how hard each frame is burned.
Compton poster study — a black and white montage of Compton street scenes, a police car, a raised-arm portrait, and handwritten tracklist graffiti, with a blackletter Compton set inside a knocked-out silhouette of Africa Poster aloneStudy II — a
Without sleeveSheet
The same Compton montage with a square black-and-white record sleeve placed at the center: a figure held upside down above a crowd Sleeve placedStudy II — b
With sleeveSheet
Study III

Igor

A poster environment for Tyler, the Creator

Poster · Collage · Repetition

Pink pushed until it stops being sweet. Xeroxed press portraits repeat along the base like a chorus that will not stop, and the wordmark stacks down the right edge as a column of pure noise.

  • Two typographic registers only — the heavy black IGOR stack and the record's own red logotype. Nothing else is allowed to speak.
  • Scribbled marker linework sits over the flat pink so the sheet keeps a sketchbook hand.
  • One red shape at the lower right is the single break in the palette; it holds the eye from falling off the page.
Igor poster study — a grainy pink collage with the IGOR wordmark stacked five times down the right edge, marker linework across the top, repeated black and white press portraits along the base, and the album sleeve centered IgorPoster — Study III
Tyler, the CreatorIgor — poster
When We All Fall Asleep cover study — a teal and oxblood regrade of a figure seated on a bed with a second figure hanging upside down beside it, shadow hands reaching in from the corners, hand-lettered title above CoverStudy IV — a
SquareCover
Study IV

When We All Fall Asleep

A cover and gatefold for Billie Eilish

Cover · Gatefold · Tracklist

A regrade of the record's own scene into teal and oxblood, with the room's shadows raised into hands. The gatefold is a separate world entirely — chromatic, split down the middle, warm against cold.

  • The cover keeps hand-lettered type so the title stays closer to a warning than a logo.
  • Fourteen tracks are set flush left in a single quiet column — the layout's only calm surface.
  • The gatefold is shown twice: the field alone, then the field carrying the sleeve, to check the type still survives the collage behind it.
Gatefold study — a red and cyan chromatic collage of layered portraits and eyes, with the fourteen-track listing and running times set flush left in white Gatefold — fieldStudy IV — b
Field aloneGatefold
The same gatefold collage with a second square sleeve, a close portrait, placed at its center Gatefold — placedStudy IV — c
Sleeve placedGatefold

Self-directed until someone hands me a record.

Commission a sleeve