PRECINCT ALBUM COVER DESIGN

Precinct began without a formal brief. I was given a small collection of untitled audio files and a loose suggestion of 1970s cop shows. Everything else including the album title, concept and visual direction, was developed in response to the music.

The title Precinct could belong to a 1970s cop show or a contemporary streaming series. That ambiguity suited the music. I didn’t want police cars, badges, guns or any of the usual crime imagery. I wanted it to feel sleazy, nocturnal and morally ambiguous.

The portrait was constructed from multiple photographic elements, building a character who could sit somewhere between authority and threat. It isn’t clear whether this man is going to help you or whether he’s the reason you need help. The blue light might be coming from his own police car, or from the car you called because of him. I wanted to leave that unresolved and let the viewer construct the story around him.

The extreme crop was important. By withholding most of the face and bringing the subject uncomfortably close to the frame, the portrait becomes less descriptive and more oppressive. I was thinking about the claustrophobic proximity of some Hitchcock close-ups, where the camera seems almost too close to the subject.

Colour and texture were then used to push the image away from contemporary digital photography. Cyan, red and nicotine-stained amber light, heavy grain and degraded texture give it the character of an ageing film print without turning it into an obvious pastiche of the 1970s.

The typography follows the same principle. I wanted something that felt as though it could plausibly have existed in the period without reaching for an overtly retro display face. Set simply in lowercase with a full stop, precinct. feels somewhere between a vintage television title card and the identity of a contemporary crime series.