OUGD503 - Individual Practice - Secret 7" - Initial Ideas

I decided kind of last minute that I wanted to produce a quick entry to secret 7". So I set it myself as a one day brief that I could produce and submit in the same day. Having listened to most of the songs the one that spoke to me the most was Max Richter's 'Dream 3' which was written in order to make people fall asleep or relax them. As always I started by sketching out some thumbnails in my sketchbook for some ideas to start designing.

I had a lot of ideas that involved dreams not only because of the title of this song but when I listened to it, it made my mind wander and daydream. I thought of creating a eery sort of landscape that is rooted in reality but there are elements of it that aren't quite real. Like when you dream about a place you have been before but there is an unfamiliarity to it. 

Also I thought of what actually happens when we go to sleep, we shut our eyes and let reality melt away into blackness. I thought I could portray this through a surreal melting pattern on a black backdrop. I quite like this idea, however I'm not sure about what colours I could use as bright colours would contrast well against the black but in sleep we associate mellow, neutral colours that connote relaxation. 

Another more literal idea that I had was to simply draw a graph of sleep activity on a simple background. However I do fear that this would be way too minimal and would look a bit like an ECG rather than a sleep graph.

Playing on the reality melting away idea I thought that I could further portray it with the melting coming out of shut eyes to represent that it all happens when we shut our eyes. As well as portraying that eyes are the window to the soul. 

My next two ideas were similar to the sleep graph idea that I had before but in the form of an MRI scan. I found an image of a brain that was in light sleep compared to one that was in REM sleep (the deepest stage of sleep where you dream) and the difference in which areas of the brain were lit up was very interesting. So I thought I could simply put this on the cover creating an abstract shape that only some people may recognise as a brain scan.