Wolf Alice - gifs & animations

• Recommended Listening: Wolf Alice - Don’t Delete the Kisses
  
  Continuing (a little) with animation, I tried to capture two disparate emotions in a similar method, if that makes sense.
  Instead of a huge animation, I tried a few looping gifs that are clear without being over the top. This one I feel is the less subtle of the two, but the song itself is a very overtly aggressive one (lyrics include: “Am I a bitch to not like you anymore? Punch me in my face I won’t even fight you no more”). While it was a change of pace, I definitely feel the second gif is more effective.
  
• This song is very lyric heavy and overtly romantic, in the classic more tragedy-centric sense. Because of this, as well as the lengthy title and swelling instrumentals that dominate the back end of the song, I felt a little overwhelmed when approaching it, as it feels like a very complete and full thing already.
  So I left it for a while and dawdled on other stuff.
  But then I basically thought, if you can't tell everything, then tell nothing. Does that make sense? I hope that makes sense.
  I basically just wanted to give a small look into the narrative made by the song, by showing a simple image that anyone who’s ever written a nervous message to anyone else can understand. Literally as I type this the cursor stops and blinks along, as if the whole world is waiting to see what you’ll write next. I wanted to communicate this nervousness and trepidation in the simplest way possible.
  

The Big Moon - music designs

Recommended Listening: The Big Moon - Sucker

I want to double down this year on the musical side of my practice, because interpreting songs through illustration has been really beneficial for me not only as a visual communicator (la dee da) but also just in general. I find it a healthy way to get emotion out in a tangible way that I can look back and reflect on. I guess it's like a diary sort of, but for everyone to look at.
I’m still floating between literal and lateral thinking when approaching some of these songs. The idea for this one stemmed from the music video being set in the Old West, so I thought the visual of a Revolver barrel would link well to that, as well as the lyrics of the song basically saying the speaker is helpless to resist how they feel, at proverbial gunpoint from their own feelings. It's a simple and honest message so I thought black and white translated pretty well.

On the other hand, this song deals with the support friends have for each other, and how it's easy to feel alone sometimes. Visually I didn’t have much to go on so I simplified how I was thinking and just tried to tell the story through colour and composition. Although all the yellow shapes are clustered together and the composition suggests they are there to support the pink shape, I definitely wanted them to remain different colours, to communicate the fact that sometimes you just feel separate, even when there are lots of people there to help.

I’m really getting a lot out of working this way, I feel more aware of my decisions and like I’m understanding my own thought process more.