Album Art - Dooryarders
The album art (front and back cover, liner notes) for the Dooryarders album "Best Laid Plans" is a current project of mine. I was commissioned by the band to create the art for their album.
Here is the album which was released with the cover art in October of 2023.
As quoted from their website, Dooryarders is "a Mid-Coast Maine region retro rock band [combining] elements of R&B and grit to bring you original music informed by the varied backgrounds of its members. The band formed in 2022 and is composed of Bill Stamey (lead vocals, guitar, originally from Memphis), Howard "Word" Coven (guitar, vocals, from New York and for several years, California), Scott Mills (drums, Maine), and Randy Shaw (bass, vocals, Rhode Island and Maine)."
The client provided me with the following definition to describe the concept:
An object commonly found in the dooryard, typically broken or of low quality, and often explicitly forbidden by neighborhood associations or communities. Examples include undesirable and out-of-date cars also known as "beaters," home appliances that have fallen into disrepair (especially washing machines), household or vehicle detritus (especially snowmobile parts), couches or chairs designed for indoor use, or poorly arranged objects used for work, but left in the open or under a blue tarp.
Alternate definition: a lazy individual who spends an excess amount of time in the dooryard drinking beer or coffee brandy.
The band wants their image to capture a feeling of the aforementioned “dooryarder” aesthetic while combining it with the essential style and mood of their music.
The initial request from the lead singer, Bill Stamey, was "The idea I had was a messy dooryard with an old beat up car, a few lobster traps, and the four of us sitting around in mismatched lawn chairs or other [stuff]. Could be line drawing."
My goal was to give the band professional album art that falls in line with their desired style. We decided on a black and white line drawing so they can add colored filters to it as they see fit (for use in music videos, etc).
I drew several sketches for the client to look over. The initial request that the client made ended up looking far too busy. They pointed out a few different parts of each sketch that they liked and I combined them into a new image.
First Sketch
Second Sketch
Third Sketch
Fourth Sketch
I created the typeface while working on developing the final draft of the front cover based upon the image below (provided by the band).
The client and I also discussed creating a back cover and liner notes. Both are still works in progress.
I suggested making the back cover the inverse of the front, as if the viewer is looking at the back of the same house and car pictured on the front. An initial draft of the back cover is included below.
Final Album Cover
Draft of Back Cover
Image by mego-studio on Freepik