Artist Research

I've researched some artists that I thought are relevant to the topic and idea that I have. Firstly, I selected singers/groups whichI thought I could work the design around and they are also artists that I like and know quite a bit about.

SHINee

SHINee is a five member group who debuted in 2008 around the ages 15 to 18. Having debuted at a young age the group boasted young and new concepts which were quite new in 2008. They are know for their contemporary style and experimental genre's and also also known to start genre trends as well as incredibly hard choreographies. In 2015, they released a predominantly deep house style album which started a house style music trend in the recent years in Kpop.

SEVENTEEN

Seventeen is a 13 member group who debuted in 2015. The group is well know to be very hand-one with their music with most of the members partaking in producing, composing and choreographing their songs; as well as also write songs for other artist.They are also very well known for their fresh and young vibe and for their in-synced and precise choreographies despite their large number. The group utilised their large number by creating three sub-groups which specialises in dance, rap and vocals thus being able to naturally delve into different music genre's such as hiphop, ballad and EDM.

I pick these to groups as I think they have very distinct styles and approaches to music as well as the fact that they debuted in different years where one of the groups is very much established and are very mature and experienced and the other being new and still growing and establishing their own brand and style. I thinkI could work with these similarities and differences in order to create interesting and focused designs which reflect the groups' identity.

I've also become interested in designers and artist that specialises in Korean music and music videos. 

VM Project Architecture (Low Laundry Media House) &

MU:E

VM Project Architecture is a Seoul based production company that specialises in video editing and  motion visuals. They have worked with a variety of Korean artist such as SEVETEEN, Zico, Monsta X and Sik-K. They have very clean and trendy style with usage of fonts like Helvetica in most of the music videos that they direct. They also work hand-in-hand with Art Direction duo MU:E which strongly presents their work as "all about space". I like these two productions' styles as they are very clean, pleasing to the eye and works very well with the artists music style and the mood they are trying to convey. 

 

Seventeen - CLAP

 

Zico - She's A Baby

Dream Perfect Regime 

Dream Perfect Regime is a mute-genre group which produces both music and visuals. Interesting thing about DPR is that their chief director was a former Kpop group member himself (Christian Yu). He was part of the group C-Clown that debuted in 2012 and disbanded in 2015. Having experience himself I think gives him great knowledge on how designing and behind the scene work goes as he has first-hand experience therefore enabling him to think of designs which fit a certain artist and help bring the artist's style out even more. They mostly work with Korean Hip-hop artist such as One and with their first artist DPR Live being a hip-hop artist himself. All of Live's music videos are directed and produced by DPR +ian Christian). 

DPR Live - Laputa

Min Heejin

Min Heejin the visual and art director of SM Entertainment, one of the biggest Kpop agencies in Korea. She started out working for an advertising company and alter got accepted to work in the then newly built art and visual direction section of the company. She's famous for creating the Album packaging design for f(x)'s '4 walls' album with its very clean and contemporary approach which was different to other albums at that time. She also works with the music video direction and stylists for the artist that she designs for as she wants the artists' style and brand to be complete and solidified whether though their music aesthetic or fashion statements as often music trend and fashion trend interrelates. I personally like her ways of working together with all the different people that specialises in different field as it shows her careful consideration to design decisions as well as her talking to the actual artists themselves in order to get suggestions on what they want to be included as the artist themselves know who they are best. 

Other designs or her that I like is for SHINee.

Shinee released a 90's inspired album in 2016 named '1of1'.

From the album packaging you can straight away feel and see the 90's feel of the album even you haven't heard the songs before. The use of big chunky kind of hand written typography as well as the bright contrasting colours give the cover a feel of being designed in the 90's. As well as the layout and format of the typography on the cover is evident by having it slightly slanted giving  it some dynamic features mirroring a kind of 'free' and 'energetic' feel; in addition, even the way the group members are posed are also planned to be 90's ish, overall making it live up to the concept that it is trying to portray. 

Ut is also consistency throughout the album packaging design with having repetitive patterns on some the pages and sides of the packing and also going overboard the concept by actually having a real cassette tape for the songs thus having to actually buy a real cassette player to play the music, much like back in the 90's.

In addition, there is also careful consideration for the group's fashion concept. Having giving each member a colour to wear and the wide pants and wide shouldered and old-fashioned suits, but also at the same time modernising it as well to fit the time. Furthermore, the 90's style is also taken to the music video by having very 90's effects and editing styles such as the diamond and star shape fade effects as well as extreme zooms which really made the style believable and as if we are back in the 90's. 

Shinee - 1 of 1

Part of 1 of 1 music video

f(x)

Min Heejin