“Shakespeare’s Winks” EP album cover design

Few months ago I was contacted by Juan Mária Solare, Argentinian composer and pianist based in Germany, who asked me to design a cover for his new album titled “Shakespeare’s Winks”. It is a composition for solo piccolo in three parts (“Puck’s Pranks”, Cesario’s Trap” and “Mercutio’s Puns”). The music is performed by Cecilia Piehl and recorded at Kennesaw State University (Georgia, USA) on 4 May 2016. 

I was toying with different ideas, and the biggest question I asked myself was: “Should I go with embroidery or try my hands on perhaps more appropriate techniques for the album cover?”

Finally I have decided to do an embroidered design, partially because I feel much familiar and relaxed doing it, but also because the theme of the Shakespeare was just right to do it in stitching. Other dilemma was about colour scheme. It was somewhat logical to use traditional or monochrome palette (we all have that ‘brown-ish’ Shakespeare’s image on our mind). But, after hearing Juan Mária’s composition excerpts, I have decided on much lighter and brighter picture of famous playwright.

It was a great fun to do this piece. Juan Mária asked me to make a pictures of the design as the work on it was progressing, which I did to the best of my ability. He than created a really nice video of his music and my pictures and you can check it on YouTube. “Shakespeare’s Winks” can be found on Spotify.