Arctic Monkeys Art Direction
Music Industry
Project Overview
While Creative Director of the Juno design agency, Liverpool, I art-directed Arctic Monkeys eponymous debut album, ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’.
I proposed a visual aesthetic that represented the everyday mundanity of the work for the weekend lifestyle, something that would represent the Monkey’s particular lens on the world. Each song was illustrated in the inner sleeve, with the main cover image a shot of the main character captured during a moment of calm on a particularly heavy night.
The cover image had a particular relevance in the UK, as the smoking ban in public places had come into effect just before the album’s release.
The project outputs included CD packaging, Vinyl packaging, merchandise, large format advertising and digital promotion. The visual identity was carried through all media channels and is now one of the most recognisable album sleeves of the 21st Century.
I proposed a visual aesthetic that represented the everyday mundanity of the work for the weekend lifestyle, something that would represent the Monkey’s particular lens on the world. Each song was illustrated in the inner sleeve, with the main cover image a shot of the main character captured during a moment of calm on a particularly heavy night.
The cover image had a particular relevance in the UK, as the smoking ban in public places had come into effect just before the album’s release.
The project outputs included CD packaging, Vinyl packaging, merchandise, large format advertising and digital promotion. The visual identity was carried through all media channels and is now one of the most recognisable album sleeves of the 21st Century.
