Vince Clarke
Songs of Silence

Packaging Design

Vince Clarke is an English synth-pop musician and songwriter. His album Songs of Silence was meant to be a personal experiment during the Covid-19 pandemic. Clarke followed two rules: he was only allowed to make sounds and music from the Eurorack, and each piece had to be based on one note throughout.

I immersed myself in his album to really be able to get a feel of what his music meant. I listened to the full album in multiple instances throughout a month and I experimented in many mediums such as collage, markmaking and photography. I learned little facts and details about the artist and his process of creating the album to get to know him better.

The way I understood his album was like being lost, especially during a time of pandemic, all there was was exploration without a destination. Listening to the music, I felt like in an empty world, wandering and in search of something unclear.

One day, on my way home, I watched a seagull fly in circles in the sky. The sky was clear and empty. That picture explained what I felt listening to this album. I isolated this seagull even more by making it the focal point of my poster with no other element but empty space and type with no structure. The subtle pink implies that there is something, yet it is still undetermined.

The vinyl cover faintly shows a lone bird on an electricity pole printed tone on tone, almost forgotten, and lost. The typography is again without structure as the main element. In the artist's booklet, there are landscapes with only the horizon line which adds to the idea of being lost.