Bloom & Breathe is the first full length album that I have ever been a part of as a musician. For the better part of the last 2 years, the other members of Gates and myself have spent countless hours writing and over thinking every note from writing to recording. In addition to creating music, Mike Maroney and I have worked for countless hours on the production the album's visual campaign. Album artwork is always a big deal for us and just as much focus goes into the design and production process as the music itself.
Mike and I created the album artwork for Bloom & Breathe as well as our previous releases. We wanted to create something that communicated the same language as the artwork for our first 2 EPs, but rather than being restricted to that style, the idea was to take it a step further and really expand the Gates aesthetic to uncharted territory. This included using a more vibrant color palette, manipulating/collaging multiple photos with geometric graphic elements, and photographing a portrait/figure. We wanted to create a thought provoking image that works in harmony with the lyrics. The album has many underlying lyrical themes and motifs focusing on life, death, and self-transformation. This visual narrative that we created is a metaphorical expression of the album's message. We put a lot of focus into the album as a tangible artifact. Just as much thought that went into the album cover, went into the insert, vinyl labels, back cover, vinyl colors paper selection, etc. We even used a spot UV coating for an illustration I created on the vinyl packaging, which is something we haven't tried before. The process of photographing and designing everything for the album was highly collaborative between Mike and myself, a lot of it fell into place nicely and we are really happy with how it came out in the end.
