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“What you see on the cover should make you
believe you HAVE to know what’s inside.”
Words to live by, no matter what the design project is - but for Creative Director Paula Ashley, the challenge in developing a cover for FOUR, the latest CD release by her partner, Dwight Ashley, was twofold.
"When you're designing an album cover, not only do you want the cover imagery to motivate people to purchase and listen to the music - you also want it to prepare them for the experience of listening," comments Paula. The challenge of graphically interpreting the music on Four was, as with her partner's other albums, an experience as unique as the works themselves.
"The compositions Dwight had produced for this project were both achingly beautiful and strangely discordant. And then, to top it off, he gives it a title - 'FOUR' - which has no inherent emotional character at all. How do you create a sense of disturbing beauty with that?"
Having received awards for her past covers, Ashley wanted the imagery to have the same level of emotional impact and strong, striking simplicity, which successfully markets albums on shelves and online.
"I wanted to express the idea of 'four' in a very visceral way," says Paula. "Not pretty. Not stylish. If anything, something disturbing." Her choice was a man's hand, spread and reaching, palm forward, but with the index finger severed to a stub. The damaged hand is rough and bent from a lifetime of hard work, gray and bloodless in contrast to the heavy summer hues of the background. "The four-fingered hand is that of someone who endures the damaging experiences life presents," she explains, "yet carries on in spite of it."
The composition of the CD cover roughly mirrors the composition of the album's tracks: a stark, discordant landscape superimposed with disquieting imagery. The turbulent clouds in the sky clash with the still, sunny cornfield in the background. Shadows stretch long and distorted across the terrain. The desperate hand provides a grotesque centerpiece. The result is the feeling that, despite a surface beauty, Something Is Definitely Wrong Here.
Like the tasseled corn in the field, on the verge of turning brown and dry in the late afternoon sun, the music of Four is a reflection of life near its end. But does the outstretched hand belong to a man drowning, or to someone reaching up to the sky? Is the theme of Four one of hope or despair?
"I know I've done my job when reviewers comment on how the cover artwork reflects the character of the music," replies Paula, "and that's nature of Dwight's music. It's completely open to interpretation."
Learn More about Four.
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