Top 10 lists are tough, especially when you’re talking music. With so many talented artists working in such diverse realms, it’s hard to narrow them down to a select 10. This is precisely the objective of the 10x series, an annual tradition started by designers Richard Perez and Eric R. Mortensen, which sees a group of illustrators, designers, and artists from around the country selecting their top 10 favorite albums, and reimaginining the cover art for each record. This year, Perez and Mortenson tapped 19 artists (including themselves). Working in a diverse range of mediums, each participating artist is restricted to the same dimensions and one fixed color system, which is expressed within the website’s interface. As you scroll through each new album cover, the site’s background color rotates through the select color palette. These parameters make it interesting to see how each artist works with color differently.
Mark Weaver’s #3 – Chance The Rapper – Coloring Book
Through this fairly simple concept we discover several artistic relationships between music and visual art, sound and color, sound and emotion, and emotion and color. It shows how one artform can inform another, as well as how we as consumers interpret art differently. Check out some more of our favorites below:
Videos by VICE
Erik Marinovich’s #10 – D.R.A.M – Big Baby D.R.A.M
Grace Danico’s #5 – MNDSGN – Body Wash
Jessica Hische’s #4 – The Parrots – Los Ninos Sin Miedo
Mackenzie Brookshire’s #9 – BadBadNotGood – IV
Mark Weaver’s #7 – The Avalanches – Wildflower
Simone Noronha’s #1 – Solange – A Seat at the Table
Richard Perez’s #2 – Kaytranada – 99.9%
Shawna X’s #8 – Ethereal – Look At Me
Simone Noronha’s #5 – A Tribe Called Quest – We Got It from Here…Thank You 4 Your Service
Mike Davis’s #5 – Beyonce – Lemonade
To learn more about the 10x project, head over to their website.
Related:
15 Classic Album Covers Get Redesigned by Artists and Illustrators
10 Classic Album Covers Get Modern Illustration