Secret 7" 2020 x Digital Arts Mag

We were asked in mid 2020 in the run up to Secret by Digital Arts Magazine to give our thoughts on music artwork and record sleeve design. Bloody Covid meant that the Q&A was never published, but we had fun responding to the questions, so here they are.

When you set up S7 at the start, were you spurred on by trends in record sleeves at the time? Perhaps as a reaction against any staid styles, or as a celebration of the return of vinyl and how it re-championed the album cover?

Setting up Secret 7” wasn’t necessarily a direct response to anything on the design side of things. It was a charity initiative first and foremost and that was our focus to begin with.

We did, however; want to really raise the barriers on record sleeve design though. I always suggest that designing record sleeve design is the dream job of most designers, it’s the reason so many people go to art school, but in reality it feels really elitist and very few people get the chance to actually do it (myself included).

We were in fact spurred on by a more general rise in the popularity of vinyl. It was 2011 when we first started thinking about the idea, so the ‘Vinyl Revival’ hadn’t really hit it’s peak yet. People were just starting to take more of an interest in the format again and with that the design that went with it. Both of us were already really into music and art / design, but also vinyl So we did make a conscious decision to capitalise on something we were both passionate about and there seemed to be a growing public interest in.

In your years at S7, did you see any trends — or, due to breadth of artists involved, was it always in its own pocket universe, untouched by the styles of the outside world?

We always tend to have the micro trends within the project that are associated with some of the tracks. Dead Flowers gave us a lot of skulls and ‘death’ but not every track has this. It’s more the popular ones with quite descriptive titles.

We also see the current design trends of the year/era flowing through the submissions. We had a lot of illustration for a while, then minimalistic photographic sleeves were quite popular and we’re still seeing the weird ‘so bad it’s amazing, undesigned 80’s/90’s’ style that’s still really popular coming through.

I suppose the main trend that we have seen, that’s maybe a bit more unique to Secret 7” is the ‘pushing the boundaries of what a record sleeve could be’ idea. Which is something we really pride ourselves with.

We see sleeves that are knitted, cast in concrete, made of felt and wood. Ones that have the record melted down inside them, blister packs with action figures and clay sculptures of the artists face.
The kind of things are normally saved for really special edition releases (but pushed even further).

This has been a growing trend from our first year, where 90% of the artwork was flat, but with a few people taking the risk and making something special, more and more people every year look to find a new way of letting people experience their sleeve design.

I think this idea is led more by the art world and this idea of unique and exclusivity that everyone craves, rather than trends in design (of record sleeves).

How about looking at your record shelves at home — what styles have you noticed in vinyl, CD, even digital, when it comes to music artwork? Has much has changed? And did S7 perhaps influence such changes? Were there more idiosyncratic sleeves following your impact (I’m thinking the rise of people like Braulio Amado, Keith Rankin, Robert Beatty…)

I think that the use of more considered and commissioned artwork in the mainstream is definitely something that has changed. I remember looking through my parents records (some of which I now own) and the more popular records when I was younger, there was more of an almost lazy marketing tactic of shoving a photoshopped image of the artist on the cover. Whereas nowadays people want more than that from a physical format, and more from the artists. They want great merch and a immersive live show, content etc. So musicians are responding to this by collaborating more and commissioning brilliant artwork by brilliant designers and artists.

We’ve seen more of the interesting production techniques used in physical packaging and things like stickers and posters inside the sleeves too. Also the rise of the more unique artwork, where there are multiple different versions or an opportunity to customise your own post purchase.

I don’t think Secret 7” can claim to have influenced that though. People were experimenting with the physicality and that kind of thing for years (Elvis Costello — Armed Forces ahd stickers and posters, Led Zeppelin — In Through The Out Door came in a brown paper bag, Ian Dury — came in various different sleeves.) I think that the revival of vinyl and the development of the production side of design just made being more experimental and unique, more accessible.

Maybe even big artists became receptive to such changes, thanks to the big names you got on-board each year for the 7 (I mean, this year you have the Foos, Dylan, Franklin!) A big artist’s record label may have been encouraged to challenge the norms in artwork…

I’m not sure if Secret 7” has directly influenced the more mass market side of album artwork. I think there’s a movement that we might have a part in (as mentioned earlier) to more unique, more immersive experiences from bands and artists that album artwork is just a small piece of.

It’s something it’d be great to see more of though. Especially big names from the music world championing creativity and giving designers an opportunity to collaborate on their artwork.

What is the legacy of S7 and how will its impact be seen across sleeve design this decade?

Hopefully it’ll be remembered as doing good through creativity and that made people happy in various different ways. I feel like our legacy from a sleeve design angle is that the artwork can be more fun, more inclusive, accessible to everyone and more unexpected. It’d be amazing if sleeve design started being taken less seriously and was a bit more eclectic in the mainstream market.

In terms of what we do next though. We have launched an agency ‘Goodness’ with the aim of continuing to do lots more purposeful creative work and more projects like Secret 7” that have a positive impact on people from all walks of life. We’d love to be doing what we’ve done in the music, art and design space in lots of other areas too.

Thanks again to @digitalartsmag for asking.
https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/