Etta James was born in Los Angeles on the 25th January 1938 where her mother was 14 years old at the time, her real name is Jamesetta Hawkins. By the age of 5, she was already in the Gospel where she gained her fame from singing in her Church choir and on the radio. By the age of 12, she moved to San Fransisco where her career started to form.
At Last! Is an upbeat song that has Soul, Blues, Jazz and R&B aspects to it. The song was released in 1961 and it is a popular wedding song as it is about finding that one true love. Some of the lyrics I thought were significant were "a spell was cast... skies above are blue... here we are in Heaven for you are mine at last".
Ideas:
- Retro microphone - classical song
- Mystical/eerie - 'dream', 'spell was cast'
- Outline of her facial features (eyebrows, beauty spot and mouth/hair) - representative of Etta
- Church windows - She was part of the Gospel in her local Church
- Jukebox - The song reminds me of bars in movies and how there's always a jukebox in the background playing a classic song
- Sunset - another word for 'Heaven' is 'paradise' and I thought of serene scenery such as a sunset
- Beach/warm weather - also what I would associate with 'paradise'
- Dove - Etta's religious background. The Dove is the symbol for the Holy Spirit and as it is a popular wedding song, some couples free doves at their wedding as a sign of freedom and being at one
- Clouds - Heaven
- Star - Etta is part of the 'Hollywood Wall of Fame'
- Hearts - represents love
The design would definitely have some form of blue as Etta references the colour blue. The colour blue also symbolises calm, loyalty, trust, responsible, reliability, caring and peaceful.
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These are the designs I drew up to see how I liked it. The designs come from the ideas that I have explained above. The word 'Nivarna' is another word for paradise but I didn't carry on that idea since it would be too simple just to have the word on its own and also people may mistake it for another band so it may be confusing.
I hand drew a sunset since it feels more personal and raw which seems to reflect the idea of being in love. I was originally going to draw a orange/red sunset but as I had already said, I wanted to use blue as a main colour focus so I chose a blue/purply sunset but it seems too dull. The drawing was inspired by a photo that I had taken on holiday. The drawing was suppose to look soft but I didn't particularly like the outcome. I do however do like the photo image but again, it may look to dull for the upbeat tune but I will use it as an option.
This is another image I had taken on holiday which could also represent paradise as it is serene. I prefer this one better as it is brighter, calming and it makes you feel relaxed since scenery looks peaceful and warm. The image also captures the whole idea of being on a beach and nature which I think is paradise. The blue skies and the blue/green water makes the image makes you feel uplifted.
The photography images look better than a drawn image as it looks more realistic and it looks crisp and sharp so you can see the real details of the image. Although the image is slightly smaller, this would be the proportion of the image when printed.
I really liked the idea of using a dove in my final design therefore I experimented with concept. I designed the dove on illustrator and added a light blue background so that it looks softer and represents blue skies. The design looks simple as it just has the dove in the centre of the image. The first design of the dove with heart eyes is the one I prefer the most because it looks compositionally more appealing as it centred. The small touch of the heart eye is very simple but it makes the image more obvious as to what song it represents. The second design I have put the two doves together as it shows the idea of coming together 'At Last' but there is too much white space around and it looks quite boring. I didn't use heart eyes as I though it might over-do the image as it clearly shows the doves coming together in harmony already. The shade of blue I used is a light, baby blue shade that I thought was the most suitable for clear blue skies. The last two dove designs are quite similar however one is ore of a cleaner repetition of doves and the other is more of a confetti, scattered effect. I do like both but I don't think it fits as well as the first dove as they seem to have a lot going on and also because it doesn't seem like an album cover as it looks too common.
Although I prefer the first dove design, I felt it look too clean because the blue is just a solid colour and I felt like it needed texture.
I had experimented with monoprint as a possibility since the I liked the dove design but I didn't like how the colour was solid and I wanted it to look like it has texture. I experimented with different colour variations and the last two that I ended up liking the most are both similar blue shades but one I have of the dover outline and the other is of the solid coloured dove. Although my digital design is mostly similar to the first outline of the dove, I think I like the solid filled dove since it looks cleaner and sharper. The outlined dove looks murky and it is more difficult to see as the outline is not as noticeable.
Evaluation
This design was inspired by Rob Ryan's artwork. Rob Ryan's artwork is very delicate, intricate and dainty and it gives a personal feel. I wanted to create an art piece by cutting the image by hand to give it more of a special meaning. Most of Rob Ryan's artwork are about love/emotions which is exactly why I was inspired to create something from his taste as it works well with the song. I have used elements of the song in the cut out such as the heart to represent love, stars and clouds to represent Heaven and then I have actually wrote the word 'Heaven' because it ties the image in as it is a lyric from the song. I had obviously used the dove as I liked how it indicates her background and also how doves are used at weddings.
As you can see from when I had drawn the image out to final piece, the design is slightly different as I struggled with the cut out because it was so delicate to cut and difficult to cut around small shapes then I also got confused to which pieces were suppose to beck out and which weren't. The final outcome does look slightly less detailed than anticipated but I do like it as it is simple and unique. I still had the main cut out pieces in there so I wasn't too worried about the pieces I accidentally cut off. I do think that it is not too obvious and is quite ambiguous which I wanted to achieve. Of all my designs, this is the one I like the most since it is delicate and dainty which represents the idea of love and relates to the song.
The blue background is to represent blue skies and a peaceful scene. I have used G F Smith 'NEW BLUE' as the suitable background colour. I don't particularly like the scanned image as the colour looks darker and it is in real life.
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