Depression Cherry
– Project nameDepression Cherry re-design
– RoleMusic packaging designer
– DateSpring 2026
– SpecsAbobe InDesign
Adobe Photoshop
Adobe Lightroom classic
For this project, I decided to explore my passion in music by re-designing one of my favourite album covers, ‘Depression Cherry’ by Beach House. Alongside this output, to support the album cover, I also produced a poster that doubles up as an instruction manual detailing how to put together both discs to form a cherry, merchandise specifically in the form of t-shirts and hats, a CD and cassette tape.
At the beginning of the project, I sketched out my initial response to the brief whilst restating it. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to do a double gate fold, in order to accommodate the two cherries – originally I visualised the stalks unfolding and folding via a hinge but due to the repeated use of discs, I ultimately decided to keep them loose in the jacket. I wanted to use velvet to correspond with the LP’s use of velvet on the actual LP, however this proved to be too limiting being I would not have the ability to print onto it via laser printer. Furthermore, I also wanted to have the lyric book, a deliverable=le which I soon scrapped due to it not being a standalone output, sewn to the inside spine of the jacket, however this was not practical, affecting the overall construction of the jacket. My layout of tracks centred on the back and title set on the bottom left was constant throughout, as it fitted the nature of my photographs and typeface choice most sympathetically and unobtrusively.
When designing branding, or working on an existing brand, ‘if the design strays too far from the brand attributes, consumers may confuse it with something else’. This substantiates my decision to keep the integrity of the LP. Often, when large companies such as coke release new branding, it seldom ever detracts from their core identity, ‘supporting the brand’s attitude rather than detracting from it’, maximising professionalism.
Shaped discs were at their most popular in the mid-1980s, however, they are still being produced today. Immedialtey after the record is pressed, the disc is cut either with a saw or by hand. Due to the tracks starting closer to the middle of the disc, rather than the edge, there is plenty of room for die-cutting between the 4” diameter grooved portion of the disc and the outer diameter. When shaped records were at their peak, they would come in a plethora of shapes primarily being produced in the U.K and U.S.A.
There are two variants to the jacket of Depression Cherry – velvet and holographic. In this variant, the velvet covers the entire surface of the jacket; both front and back. The type itself is also velvet, which maximises cohesiveness, alongside Beach House also applying the velvet to other outputs, CD and poster. To sympathise with the integrity of the LP’s original identity, I considered integrating velvet into the record.
The second variant of Depression Cherry is holographic and shiny. This finish is less tactile than velvet however it still captures the dreaminess that I associate with the LP. I took inspiration from this particular finish by incorporating foil on the cover, making the cover feel less flat and more ethereal, corresponding sonically with the LP.
Across both LPs, the typographic treatment is exactly the same from the colour of the type, it’s placement and typeface itself. The original typeface used is Trade Gothic LTD STD in bold. On the original LP, each letter has been offset manually, mimicking an analogue, imperfect effect reminiscent of metal type.
When Beach House were doing tours of Depression Cherry, they almost always performed in black and red lighting, matching not only the visual identity of the LP, but also its mood. This evidences how strongly Beach House wanted to attach themselves to the colour scheme of black and red for the record, thus causing their audience to create the same association.
Due to the album being released almost 11 years ago, Beach House fans have spent many years with this album, resulting in its identity of black and red being deep in their relationship with the album. Changing the colour scheme at this stage would therefore alienate Beach House’s audience, and look like a completely different record.
Therefore, when shooting the photography for this redesign, I fixed a red filter onto the end of my lens to recreate the filter of black & red impossible 600 film made for Polaroid cameras, in combination with using expired film for added character. Due to me not having access to a Polaroid camera, and the film being both expensive and not manufactured frequently, I recreated the effect. I wanted to do this analogue, as I knew my images were going to be set at large sizes (up to 12”) so I wanted to take extra care in how I shot them – qualities such as film grain adding depth that would be emphasised by the scale of
the photos.
Once I got my photographs back from being developed, it was apparent that the colours within them were not appropriate enough to be printed at scale as large as 12”. To match the red and green of the cherry, I therefore made the photographs red and green, removing the muddy and blue hues that were once present in the blacks and making the orange tint – which was originally meant to be red – a more prominent, intentional deep wine shade of red which complimented the contrast of the dark green. I tried printing the photos on an inkjet Epson printer to see if it would help the colours, which it didn’t, making the colours extremely dull. Because of this, I decided to stick with the
laser printer.
Initially, I wanted to create the cherry LPs completely in-house, however this proved to be a big challenge. I managed to configure the laser cutter to cut the divot into the disc as well as the stalks, but cutting the circles themselves to be 12in by 12in was virtually impossible – requiring to be registrated with two semi-circles needing to be perfectly aligned. This wasn’t overly problematic at first until I realised that I needed to engrave the concetric tracks and grooves, replicating a real record – equating to 100 circles minimum; the laser cutter could not handle this at 12in scale. I therefore sent the file off, giving them clear instructions on how to navigate the prototype.
Crucially, the stalks needed to fit comfortably on top of the record, meaning it’s overall size could not exceed it’s bounds, being able to sit inside of the record with the disc, both together. This mitigated the risk of the listener not knowing where to put the stalks when not mounted.
Throughout the course of the project, I prototyped many times, creating 10 for the jacket alone. This was because I knew I had picked an ambitious format, as opposed to a single fold jacket, and needed to prepare for crafting the final output. Before this, I dedicated a lot of time to figuring out the net of the jacket, and how to actually print it, being limited to a height of 320mm and width of 640mm to account for hitting 3mm of bleed around the entire cover (the maximum printable area of our laser printers).
Both laminating and foiling were also considerable challenges, primarily due to not using this special finish for a project before. Often, the laminate would not stick properly to the paper, would rack up or jam. In combination with this, the foil would sometimes not cover all of the type, or crack. When I was first learning the process, often I would misregistrate the overprint. I dedicated a lot of time to getting this finish the best I possibly could within the time available.