We had the distinct pleasure to interview award winning designer Akiko Kanna about their original and creative CD music album design work. Akiko Kanna is an award-winning communication designer, that makes our world a better place with their original cd music album works.
Akiko Kanna ("AK") answered Design Interview ("DI") questions about their award-winning work Christmas Wishes CD music album. Interview questions prepared by Frank Scott.
AK : My style of design always aims to express "simple but meaningful solutions for your communication needs" and convey the idea without many descriptions.
AK : I wanted to combine some of the Christmas motifs with coffee beans, in order to relate with the customer in a simple and straightforward way. Knitting patterns and coffee beans look and feel quite similar so I created a coffee beans knitting pattern to cover all the surface of this album.
AK : Unfortunately you can’t buy this CD album anymore. It was a limited edition for that Christmas season.
AK : I think it was about 2-3 months.
AK : This is a Christmas compilation CD album sold at Starbucks coffee shops in Japan. It was commissioned by a client in order to be sold in Starbucks’ premises. The warm and friendly artwork, rendered by means of a grid of coffee beans inspired by a knitting pattern, expresses and mirrors the feelings and atmosphere of warmth and coziness normally associated with Christmas time.
AK : This design was for a limited edition event, so there’s no plan for further production or leasing at this time.
AK : I feel I wanted to try combining a traditional Christmas motif with a somehow more original and mundane concept.
AK : I don’t feel like there are peculiar influences in this design.
AK : The target are Starbucks clients.
AK : I think I understood the mission for this project and created the communication media in the simplest way.
AK : This music CD title was actually decided by the client who selected the tracklist for the album.
AK : I used mainly Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.
AK : I think “Simple communication” is the key.
AK : I did work by myself.
AK : I suppose technology helped me understand how to transform knitting patterns into graphically interesting and visually complex entities, what is the best size for printing and whether the final product would be interesting as a physical object when it’s in your hands.
AK : I always try to keep my design original as best as I can.
AK : Since I created a complex knitting pattern, coordinating with the print shop in order to align the gold foil stamping to the same graphic grid as the rest of the pattern proved to be quite a challenge.
AK : I was invited to join this competition which I was really honored to.
AK : I guess my understanding and visualization of complex patterns got enhanced by being applied to a physical item.
AK : I guess this will do for now.
