Hopeful Romantic EP
Album Artwork | Poster Design | Handlettering
Claire Kelly is an Americana singer, songwriter, and optimist based in Nashville. I’ve worked with Claire since 2018, designing cover art for albums, EPs and singles, tour posters, and merch.
Claire wanted artwork for her two 2023 singles, Drunk Girls and Taxes & Laundry, as well as album artwork for her EP Hopeful Romantic. She was looking for a cohesive color palette and illustration style across all three covers that expressed femininity and romance.
Process:
I always start my projects with a free consultation meeting to fully understand the vision and ask questions so that I can bring my clients’ ideas to life. Claire had some inspiration images that we used to create a color palette and a look and feel for the project. I also designed the artwork for her album The Scenic Route, so we wanted to pull some colors from that album and use a similar illustration style.
I start with sketches on the iPad and deliver 4-5 refined sketches to my clients so that they are involved in the process from start to finish. We have a meeting to discuss what’s working and what’s not working for them, and then the client selects a direction. Then I go into a more refined design phase and we go through two more rounds of feedback to get the design in a place that fits the client’s vision.
In this case, we ended up scrapping the Hopeful Romantic sketches and creating a skyline that combined buildings from Claire’s 3 places that she considered home: Nashville, Chicago, and Milwaukee. It’s really important to me to have meetings so we can talk it out and come up with a solution that works. This is the most exciting and energizing part of the process! Sometimes I feel like emailing feedback can get lost in translation, which is why I take the time to talk to clients over the phone or on a video chat.
After the artwork was approved, I adapted the design for a tour poster and made some designs that she put on merch to sell at shows.
