MUKESH AMARAN
ALBUM
ARTicle:
ASHWYN
WARRIER
Now there are varying perspectives on this. There are
musicians who take the visual identity seriously and there
are those who don't. But the bottom line is that whatever
art form you are working with, the inspiration always
comes from some other art form. Like Photographers are
inspired by music, musicians are inspired by cinema, etc.”
A Photographer, Film Maker and Graphic Designer – Ashwyn
Warrier is our artist of the month. Currently based out of
Mumbai, Ashwyn has categorically achieved his way up to
where he is and what he does. Surrounding himself with
the right people, music and visual art merged to give way to
some really interesting collaborations; ‘ItniJurrat?’ being one
which we have absolutely loved as an album art. Channeling
music into his life has proven beneficial for Ashwyn across
his peaks and valleys. He’s built himself with a lot of
direction and guidance through the music he listened to.
With a workflow set, Ashwyn seems to tackle the job
strategically. Hours of research and experimentation
culminating in a result that hits the mark in terms of the
concept as discussed with the musician, Piyush Kapoor of
Daira in this case. With Ankit Gupta’s “Scarred Monkey”
as the key element, Ashwyn brings out what Daira has
to say in a visual form. A gateway to what is to be heard.
“With respect to the music scene an Album Cover is just
considered as something that needs to be made along with
the album so that it sells. Like a visual face to the music.
46
The
Score Magazine
highonscore.com
It wasn’t an easy gig for Ashwyn to take up and
create. He says “The font was inspired by 'Sholay' and
all old film posters that gave this 'earthquake-y', 'We
mean serious business' feel. The monkey had to be
completely 'photoshopped' to match the feeling of the
background and font. This was done by the process of
blending using the various tools available in photoshop. I
looked up various effects and ended up creating it myself
after a ton of trial and errors. Not perfect but works I
suppose. The process took about three months of creation,
fine-tuning, reviews, typography changes and after a final
approval by the whole band we were good to go. All of my
efforts to reach the final result happened on photoshop and it
would be terribly boring to anyone who is ready to listen.”
Ashwyn has chosen the visual element as his genre of
creation like all our artists and seems to have found
a niche in it that reflects the voice of another artist
and not himself. His relationship with Piyush and
the band gives him a much deeper emotional access
to create freely, allowing him to create a piece that
definitely will make people pick up the album.