Heads Will Roll

kristakdesign

England, UK

Design: Krista Kay Design
Location: United Kingdom
Project Type: Student Project
School: Shillington College of Graphic Design
Tutor: Hilary Archer
Packaging Contents: Vinyl
Packaging Substrate / Materials: Paper, Cardboard
Printing Process: Digital Printing

The Brief: Create a handmade album cover concept using an off-screen approach.

Heads Will Roll is the ultimate dance track of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs musical canon. Lead singer Karen O said of the hit single, “I figured if we were going to write a dance song it should be about heads bouncing on the floor and murder and slaughter.”

She herself is an icon, coming up in the early 2000s in the male-dominated New York music scene, quickly establishing a persona rooted in anarchy. The use of Barbie dolls on the cover artwork is subversive to this identity, as they are known for their perpetuation of unrealistic beauty standards and female objectification in a patriarchal society. The idea of Karen O as the antithesis to this, combined with the scene playing out in the track, results in a morbid scene created with beheaded Barbies, a handmade dance-floor, and real props.

A custom typeface was also created paying homage to album typography popular in the 80s, to add to the overall kitsch feel of the cover art.

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What’s Unique?
This is an entirely offscreen approach to the vinyl cover artwork, utilising ceramic tiles, posterboard, Barbie dolls, glitter gel, and Blu Tack to create the composition.