Student Work: To Pimp a Butterfly Cover
This project was a super fun project I worked on for my packaging design class. The class was tasked with making an alternative cover for our favorite album. I chose To Pimp A Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar, an album that’s almost engraved into my DNA.
I was heavily inspired by the song u on the album. In this song, Kendrick confronts the guilt that he feels from not being there for a childhood friend that died while on his path to stardom. These feelings culminate into a track filled with raw emotions that contrast each other in other songs in the album. This lead me to play with the duality that the album has.
I took the still from the music video and used this as the base image for the album cover
This was the result after adding type and extra elements. The strokes added to the silhouetted half of Kendrick’s face amplify the idea of duality along with the dual-colored butterfly wings. The motif of the wings is extended to the back of the vinyl cover in order to add cohesion to the entire package.
