I was discussing artwork with my bearded friend Kris Morris the other day, and as is his way, he cut straight to quick.

He said simply, “either tell a designer exactly what you want, or pick a designer whose work you love, and tell them to do whatever they want.”

Kris is right.

So why is artwork so difficult sometimes?

It’s difficult because of pain-in-the-arses like me. Don’t be like me. I have traversed all 9 circles of design hell and worse still I’ve taken designers along for the ride.

I have sinned, but I did learn a few things along the way…

1. Be a bowerbird.

Buy an artbook. Find a wall. Get a printer. Make a folder on your desktop. Do whatever you have to do, but as you’re making your music document everything that catches your eye along the way and everything that informs the art you’re making. You can then bring all this raw material to a designer. This process both helps you refine your vision and brings a collaborator along on your journey. It effectively allows someone to get inside your head.

2. Finish your own stuff first.

If you’re still working out what your album is going to sound like, don’t start on the artwork. If you do, all that indecision will find it’s way into the art collaboration and you’ll most likely drive your designer nuts. Artwork is like the introduction to an essay; you can only finish it when you’ve thought through the rest of the stuff first.

3. Be Michael Caine. Get very very specific.

Get very, very specific about how you want things to look and the cultural, emotional and historical references that inform your work. Refine this down to one idea, then refine that one idea further. Get specific about the audience you have in mind. The worst thing you can do when you’re commissioning artwork is to give vague directions, or present too many options to a designer whose work doesn’t intrinsically match yours. 

4. Stand your ground.  

Artistic sensibilities are so subjective, sometimes you and the designer are just never going to see eye to eye. My sister Maggie went through the excruciating process of rejecting tens of cover designs for her memoir, When It Rains, before settling on the final design. I remember thinking at the time she was crazy to put herself, her publishers and me, her sounding board, through this.

In hindsight, she was absolutely right.  She spent years writing that book, crafting each chapter, paragraph, sentence and comma. In a way it was the tangible evidence of the sum of her life to that point. Why throw all that commitment away by wrapping it up with something that looks like a Hallmark card? It’s a testament to her vision and tenacity that she stood her ground, organised her own photo shoot and in the end, has a cover that she can not only live with, but love.  As you can see, it also features a horse. I’m reliably informed that books with horses on the cover sell very well. Go figure.

5. Don’t pay big money or hire big names for that unique, indefinable essence.

This is true of so many creative endeavours.

Only you can summon that indefinable essence that makes your art valid and unique.

Buying that piece of equipment or hiring that person all the big, successful projects are using, will not necessarily result in that indefinable essence manifesting visually or otherwise. That person is expensive mostly because they are professional. A professional will not necessarily be able to see into your soul and reflect it back to you. Only you, or someone who gets you, can do that.

That said, always work with good people like Mundane Matters, Ben Hay and Lance Alton Troxel.

6. Make sure you have a shared agenda.

Make sure you agree with your designer on what you’re both trying to achieve. Your agenda, presumably, is create a great album cover that represents you and the work. Presumably you also want to achieve this in a reasonable timeframe for a reasonable price. Do you share this agenda with the designer? Or do you expect them to work endlessly while you make up your mind? Is the designer more interested in finishing the job quickly so they can move on with something else?  Is the record company, management or publisher in the ear of the designer putting pressure on them? Is the designer producing work primarily with the needs of their portfolio in mind? Are you expecting great artwork for free? If you have differing expectations to your designer it will create angst. Make sure you have the same agenda and then work through it methodically one a step at a time with clear budgets and deadlines.  

Brilliant designers distill the words or sounds you’ve so painstakingly spent all your time obsessing over, into a singular visual essence. This is no easy task. In fact, when it works, it’s a miracle of synaesthesia.

Here’s to the miracles.