Psychedelic Studies

For this project, the challenge was to create an album cover for a music group in the style of a chosen design movement. I chose to redesign Tame Impala’s Currents album cover. Their music is clearly inspired by psychedelic 1960s culture. Their genre has even been described as “modern psychedelic rock.” Therefore, the redesign of their album is heavily influenced by Psychedelic Art, part of the 1960s Op Art movement. Op Art, or Optical Art, typically has high contrast colors and creates a confusing and intriguing illusion for viewers. This type of art often features text as imagery, loud textures or collages, visual tension, and the effect of vibrations and movement. In particular, Psychedelic Art typically has imagery of the human body or nature. After researching the characteristics of Op Art, I was able to derive a new poster for Tame Impala. The main collage was created in Adobe Photoshop, while the typography was created using Adobe Illustrator.