#FUTURALBUM: Radiohead's OK Computer (1997)

My first entry into @Troy DeShano's Futuralbum finally went live yesterday! Don't know what Futuralbum is? Let's bring you up to speed: "FUTURALBUM is a collaborative album art design project created by Strong Odors artist & illustrator Troy DeShano. Top international graphic designers have been invited to contribute re-imagined cover art for any album they choose. The goal of the project is to give these incredible artists an opportunity to design something “just for fun”—a rare treat for those of us often bogged down with design work tasks. With the belief that limitations spur creativity, each artist was given simple but strict restraints for their album design: - Use only images from Flickr Internet Archive Book Images - Use Futura only for all type." Troy assembled an amazing roaster of people for the project, and it's intimidating to be in such company. Now, let's talk a bit about how this cover came to be. OK Computer was my album of choice when the call for the project came, so that's how I picked it. Songs like Paranoid Android also had a tremendous impact on me when I listened to this band for the first time in 2003 (I discovered them thanks to the famous Low Morale flash animation set to the acoustic version of Creep). Either way. With that in mind, I started browsing the Internet Book Archive Flickr stream for goodness, and boy did I find lots of it. I wanted to visually represent concepts like robots, information channels, information processing, and their darker side. I found this photo of train tracks, that provided me with a visual allegory for a network. Then, this diagram describing the inner workings of a radio gave me a visual to evoke something technological. I somewhat cheated, because I went and tracked the full diagram back to the actual Internet Book Archive, and not just its Flickr version. The color palette comes from the actual album art, thanks to Colourlover user syzygy. The band name and album title are set in Futura Bold, tracked wide (275).

My first entry into Troy DeShano's Futuralbum finally went live yesterday!
 
Don't know what Futuralbum is? Let's bring you up to speed:
 
"FUTURALBUM is a collaborative album art design project created by Strong Odors artist & illustrator Troy DeShano. Top international graphic designers have been invited to contribute re-imagined cover art for any album they choose. The goal of the project is to give these incredible artists an opportunity to design something “just for fun”—a rare treat for those of us often bogged down with design work tasks.
With the belief that limitations spur creativity, each artist was given simple but strict restraints for their album design:

- Use only images from Flickr Internet Archive Book Images
- Use Futura only for all type.
"
 
Troy assembled an amazing roaster of people for the project, and it's intimidating to be in such company.
 
Now, let's talk a bit about how this cover came to be. OK Computer was my album of choice when the call for the project came, so that's how I picked it. Songs like Paranoid Android also had a tremendous impact on me when I listened to this band for the first time in 2003 (I discovered them thanks to the famous Low Morale flash animation set to the acoustic version of Creep).
 
Either way. With that in mind, I started browsing the Internet Book Archive Flickr stream for goodness, and boy did I find lots of it.
 
I wanted to visually represent concepts like robots, information channels, information processing, and their darker side.
 
I found this photo of train tracks, that provided me with a visual allegory for a network. Then, this diagram describing the inner workings of a radio gave me a visual to evoke something technological. I somewhat cheated, because I went and tracked the full diagram back to the actual Internet Book Archive, and not just its Flickr version.
 
The color palette comes from the actual album art, thanks to Colourlover user syzygy.
 
The band name and album title are set in Futura Bold, tracked wide (275).
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