Behind the Cover Art of Our Latest EP
Every record sleeve carries a second version of the music: a visual argument made before the first note. Behind the cover art of our latest EP is a trail of rehearsal-room scraps, shared references and decisions that belong to both of us. We wanted it to feel handmade, but never careless.
For Think13, Dee and Christoph began by laying out material rather than drawing a finished picture. Pages from our VAGABOOM youth sessions sat beside cello diagrams, torn-off gig notices and photographs taken between sound check and the first song. The cover grew from that pile, slowly changing as the songs did.
Our audience in Australia encounters the project in a very different landscape from our Bay Area home. Think13 music reaches listeners through streaming, Bandcamp, independent record stores and live rooms scattered from Melbourne to Brisbane. The sleeve therefore had to work both as a physical object and as a small, vivid image on a phone screen.
From rehearsal fragments to one frame
We tested three visual directions before deciding what belonged on the front. Each reflected part of the EP, but each also carried a different emotional weight. The Bay Area postcard felt recognisable yet impersonal, while the gig-poster approach captured our live work but made the composition difficult to read.
| Cover direction | Visual source | What it communicated |
|---|---|---|
| Bay Area postcard | Golden Gate lines, fog and harbour light | Scenic, familiar and distant |
| Gig-poster collage | VAGABOOM flyers, venue details and torn tape | Energetic, youthful and crowded |
| Cut-paper collage | A cello outline, hand-drawn marks and photographs | Intimate, tactile and flexible |
The collage won because it could hold contradictions. It reflected the precision of the arrangements alongside the noise, laughter and last-minute changes that shape a rehearsal. It also allowed us to include VAGABOOM without turning the youth programme into a separate story.
Several elements were photographed specifically for the artwork. A folded rehearsal sheet became a background texture, while threads of red thread connected images of hands, stage lights and studio equipment. These details disappear at a glance but reward someone holding the record and looking more closely.
The symbols we kept
The central shape is a simplified cello silhouette. We cut it from dark blue paper, leaving a narrow opening that reveals the collage beneath. Its curve softens the composition without referring too literally to one instrument or performance.
The hands come from photographs made during VAGABOOM sessions. We kept them unglossy and slightly out of focus so they read as evidence of participation rather than posed publicity. Together, they form a loose circle around the cello and suggest how individual voices become part of a larger arrangement.
We also kept three uneven horizontal bars. At first they resembled an equaliser, but the longer one extends beyond the edge, creating a sense that the music continues outside the frame. That became an important metaphor for the EP: each song may close, but the shared energy does not.
Colour, light and the Bay Area
The palette began with colours visible around us in San Francisco: fog grey, Muni red, faded poster yellow and the blue-grey of the bay. A muted green gave the handmade paper a natural quality and created a subtle visual connection for Australian listeners.
Warm light travels across the cover from the upper corner, while darker paper gathers toward the centre. It gives the flat artwork a sense of depth without using a conventional photographic background. The effect changes slightly when the sleeve catches light in a shop or at a listening table.
We chose matte, lightly textured stock for the physical edition. A small glossy shape picks out the cello opening, while the rest stays soft enough to handle. This contrast gives the cover a tactile rhythm that survives compression on digital platforms, where fine paper textures and subtle colour shifts can disappear.
Reading the cover in Australia
The cover arrives in Australia through several overlapping music cultures. Independent shops along Brunswick Street in Fitzroy, Melbourne, place records beside design books and local releases. Sydney listeners may encounter the EP through a record store in Redfern, a community radio interview or a vinyl order sent through Bandcamp.
Australian listeners also tend to approach artwork with a practical eye. In Australian parlance, the finished design is “not too flash”: colourful and playful without trying too hard. That response shaped our decisions, especially the choice to keep the central collage readable rather than filling every corner with detail.
Local radio and small venues offer another way the sleeve circulates. When “She’ll Be Right” reaches a presenter in an arvo show, or when the EP is played after a live performance, the artwork is often seen at a small size on a screen. The bold cello shape and red thread remain identifiable, while the quieter photographic details reward closer viewing.
The nearly day-long time difference between the Bay Area and Australia’s eastern states also influenced how we imagined the release. A morning radio placement in San Francisco can become an evening event in Sydney. That simple shift felt worth marking, because it connects the geographic distance between our home and our Australian audience with the EP’s central idea of separate moments forming one continuous piece.
Printing the final edition
The final digital artwork was prepared as a square master so it could move cleanly between streaming services, Bandcamp and social media. We tested the reduced image at thumbnail size, then adjusted the contrast around the hands to stop them disappearing on a dim phone screen.
For the physical release, the colour palette was rebuilt for CMYK printing because bright screen colours can behave differently on uncoated paper. We checked the red thread and blue cello against a printed proof rather than relying on the monitor, correcting the green until it felt balanced beside the warmer yellow.
The finished sleeve will include a small inner sheet carrying the EP’s notes and VAGABOOM acknowledgements. It will also be reproduced as a limited poster for live performances and radio appearances, extending the artwork beyond the record without changing its core composition. The immediate next step is to send the approved print file to our supplier on Tuesday for one 12-inch sleeve proof before the release artwork is locked.
