Album Art-Needed Treatment

First published on November 4, 2018

One thing I didn’t consider while preparing to distribute my first track – Needed Treatment – was album art. Yeah, I know. “Duh! Really, dude ?!” Yes, really. So I jumped in GIMP to touch up this drawing I did last year hoping to make a piece of art with a lot of symbolism. During a break I read the requirements for album art – 3000 x 3000 with 300 dpi. I didn’t need Waifu2x but I did need to enlarge the orginal image.

It symbolized me at work – headphones, indifferent facial expression, and zoned out working. I’m not that black, but you get it.

I decided to give House 3-122 an actual title after listening to how Deadmau5 titled Faxing Berlin – one of my favorites. I came up with “Needed Treatment” as I’d mixed it years ago but it was bad. DoctorMix.com treated it. The track needed treatment.

And I needed album art.

The new title led me to the Doctormix logo and Army Medical Department (AMEDD) regimental distintive insignia (RDI). The RDI symbolizes a Soldiers’ general occupation, or career management field (CMF), which organizes specific job titles – military occupation specialities (MOS). It’s a badge worn above the dress uniform name plate or unit awards. Interestingly, the RDI and DoctorMix logo colors match – red, white, and blue.

How to work this into album art? The easiest way was to ensure every color symbolized something.

• Brown background symbolizes the skin color people actually see and the RDI rooster’s mark of progression. Distributing this track is a milestone for me. The first track I pushed to music providers was the first I’d sent for needed treatment.
• Blue and white headphones mimic the DoctorMix logo, colors of the RDI, and custom headphones available in my Zazzle merchandise store.
• Universal red cross is a bandage to my pride. I needed more help than anticipated but am better for it.
• Font is from UberStudent, the Linux distro that introduced me to the CherryTree note-taking application. It’s one of my go-to apps. Had I not found Uberstudent when I did, such a distro would’ve been the first college project I incorporated into my personal brand. Instead it was producing #22Kill videos for the Syracuse Student Veterans of America chapter.
• Argon, AMEDD RDI’s shade of grey, seemed good to outline the face.

If I were more creative, I’d probably use Krita. If I were smarter, I’d probably use Fiverr.

Someone told me they thought this album art was the work of Jean-Michel Basquiat. After looking him up, I took it as a major compliment.

Check it out on your favorite platform.