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Academic Level at Time of Creation
Senior
Date of Creation
Fall 11-21-2025
Artist Statement
Some of my earliest experiences with music had nothing to do with sound. Before I even understood the concept of musical artists and bands, I would go through my parent’s cases of CD’s and pick out my favorites based solely on the cover art. The cover often shaped my expectations long before I pressed play. The relationship between sight and sound, and the ability of design to suggest a whole world in a single frame, stayed with me.
Blush Records is a fictional record label created as a way to explore how music culture shapes visual identity. This project looks at the emotional worlds that surround band imagery and album design, and how a graphic language can suggest a sound even when the music does not exist. I approached the label as a full ecosystem, building out its roster and imagining the specific tone of each artist through visual decisions in typography, color, and illustration. The three bands developed for the record label represent different imagined subcultures. Glum leans into grunge inspired textures and heavier forms, while Second Rodeo and girls with bangs both take on a playful more feminine tone. But each identity belongs to the larger world of the label through shared sensibilities in composition and tone. This allowed me to test how broad a visual ecosystem can become while still feeling unified.
My understanding of restraint and conceptual precision is influenced by the work of Peter Saville. His album covers for New Order, such as on Power, Corruption & Lies or Blue Monday, show how a designer can use unexpected references and minimal information to create strong emotional associations. My process for designing is also influenced by poster designer Jay Ryan and his hand drawn gig posters. I appreciate and incorporate analogue methods such as scanners and distressed surfaces, and improvised layering techniques that feel handmade and slightly unstable.This exhibition is ultimately
about the pleasure of inventing. It treats design as a tool for storytelling and imagines the kinds of bands and identities that might exist just outside the frame of reality.
Advisor/Mentor
Jim Bryant; Gregory Scott Cook; Nicole Hand; Lu Colby
Description
Blush Records is a project that takes the form of a fictional record label, complete with multiple bands, albums, and promotional material. The installation consists of approximately 12–15 works, each exploring different aspects of music culture and design. These works will include screen-printed gig posters, album covers, band logos, and merchandise mockups. I wanted to create a cohesive narrative reflecting on how music scenes cultivate their own aesthetics and mythologies.
The overall theme is unified through the identity of the label itself, but each band within the label embodies its own visual and conceptual identity. Viewers can move through the show as if browsing through the catalog of an indie record label, encountering a range of styles that all feel connected by the umbrella of the project.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Guess, Laurel O., "Blush Records" (2025). B.F.A. Practicum Exhibition (ART 498). 163.
https://digitalcommons.murraystate.edu/art498/163