In preparation for VIBE’s story, “The 51 Best Albums That Never Were”, I had a meeting with Sean Fennessey, VIBE’s music editor, during which we agreed on the idea of creating hypothetical representations of what the cover art for each “lost” album might have looked like.
Immediately, I thought of a pair of illustrators Christopher and Kathleen
Sleboda, who go by the collective name Gluekit. I had been following their work for some time and was especially impressed by their ability to transform groups of disparate photos into very bold, colorful collages. This seemed the perfect illustration assignment for them as we would be working with historical images of each artist from the specific era when their projects got shelved.
I called and spoke to Chris on the phone about the assignment and described what we were looking for. After he agreed to take the job, I sent him the photos that had been researched for each album and let Gluekit get to work.
The sketches that I got back were close to perfect and with a few minor tweaks, we had final artwork! The results speak for themselves but I’ll let Chris and Kathleen give you some insight into their creative process below:
Gluekit:The idea of creating album art for four of the most anticipated albums that never dropped was a great opportunity, but daunting as well. We wanted each album's imagery and feel to be consistent with other albums in the spotlighted artist’s back catalogue, while remaining distinctive and cool. We paid specific attention to the period that the album would have been produced to identify typography with the right feel, and we compiled an image library of each artist's existing covers to give us a grasp of what might fit in best. Luckily each of these albums had either a strong concept or a really clear place in an artist's narrative, which helped us select colors, possible themes, and really focus on what worked. VIBE Art Director Mark Shaw also gave us great feedback, helping us fine-tune our initial ideas and offered valuable feedback and assistance.
"Power of The Dollar"
For 50 Cent's Power of the Dollar, we wanted to create something raw and gritty that put the young 50 Cent front and center. Substituting a close-up of 50's 1994 mug shot in place of the first president worked well, and we kept green as the dominant color to emphasize the album's title. We deteriorated the illustration overall to keep things rough and interesting. Our type choices for Power of the Dollar referenced the fat serif fonts found on American money.
"Dream Factory"
We knew when it came to Prince and The Revolution that we needed to employ a strong use of purple in deference to the Purple One and an overall dreamy, slightly psychedelic, weirdly energetic feel completed the piece.
"Khulami Phase"
For Lauryn Hill's anxiously awaited Khulami Phase, we tried to create a modern, avant-garde aesthetic with an earthy-orange color palette and subtle visual cues referencing the golden power and clarity of Hill's vocals.
"The Commission"
For the mid-90s collaboration by The Commission, The Notorious B.I.G.'s brainchild, we were visually referencing the aesthetic that blew up around mafia films like Scarface, GoodFellas, and The Godfather trilogy. These kinds of pop culture references were certainly the ones that B.I.G. and his crew had been influenced by. Classic black and white images with some pops of color felt right, and let us highlight Charli Baltimore's crimson tresses, while the compressed red type conveyed just the right kind of urgency.
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