World Building with Ari Lennox

digital design

World Building with Ari Lennox

How Animating Unused Assets Into Striking Visuals Helped One Rising Artist Raise Production Value & Expand Her Reach

for Dreamville Records

To help introduce Ari Lennox’s phenomenal debut EP “Pho” we reused graphic elements from the album artwork and repurposed unused shots from the cover photo shoot. The result was an eye catching means of adding some production value and building a world around the album’s aesthetic.

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It was 2016,

Ari Lennox was an unknown neo-soul/R&B singer that had just become the first woman signed to J. Cole’s Dreamville Records.

Like many new artists

Without a strong brand or visual identity, press relied on using and reusing her album artwork when covering her.

Ari had just dropped her debut Pho EP

Her identity was tied to a beautiful but single image.

Dreamville’s Creative Director Adam Roy
knew Ari was quickly outgrowing her existing visual assets

Ari had a run of upcoming festival dates to perform at, as well as a need to upload her music to YouTube.

She needed a new way to create a visual identity that would catch attention and bring her brand to life as her audience grows

Adam had the idea:

Generate new content with the graphic elements of the album cover along with some unused shots from the cover shoot.

Being a fan of Ari’s Music

and having been developing watercolor effects of my own

I jumped right in.

Adobe Photoshop was used to isolate Ari from the background and After Effects to composite and create animated loops.

Three new animations were produced

Used for social media posts, YouTube pseudo-videos and video wall graphics for live performances.

These new assets broadened reach

Raised production value and gave media outlets fresh imagery to work with when writing about Ari.

The result was eye-catching,

a means of adding production value and further building out the artists brand image and universe around the album’s aesthetic.

Questions about this project?

digital design