BTS is known to create an experience with their albums. They stimulate multiple senses with their music. The major part of this experience is visuals for which album art plays a huge role. Deeply connected to the overall concept of the album, its art is the first impression for ARMYs whenever a new one comes out. In this blog, let's take a dive into the different visual arts of the albums. From Dark & Wild to Butter, each one reflects on an idea, theme, and creative process which were a part of its creation.
Unconscious or otherwise, designs and colors evoke emotions, inspire reactions, and change modes of thinking. It can excite or soothe your mood. From 2 Cool 4 Skool to BE, each album represents different themes which are seen in the album covers. Dark & Wild, one of the earlier albums, had themes of jealousy and angst with black as the canvas color which also reflects on the theme of the album. The cover image for Dark & Wild (2014) reads 'WARNING! LOVE HURTS, IT CAUSES ANGER, JEALOUSY, OBSESSION, WHY DON'T YOU LOVE ME BACK?’ which also gives us an insight on the album. As we move further in BTS’ discography, we see a change in concept which is also reflected in the album covers.
Wings album cover has four different designs which— when put together— completes the artwork of smoke. Wings album talks about temptation and smoke here calls to your olfactory senses. As explained by Jung Kook in a Q&A with Pitchfork, “it’s like ‘What does this smell like?’” Wings’ album logo consists of four different symbols resulting from the combination of different symbols of each member as seen in the image below. The logo and album were designed by VBstudios. The short video depicts how different symbols were combined to form the final wings logo. The album has a black and grey cover which creates an environment of mystery and temptation.
Source: https://ibighit.com/bts/eng/discography/
As we move to the Love Yourself series, the album art gets more complicated. In the theme of this series of albums, the traditional Chinese 起 which means beginning, 承 meaning connection, 轉 meaning transition, and 合 which means the end. Husky Fox, when designing this album series, combines various elements according to BTS’ world view and artist’s image. Hence, the album series covers a series of patterns composed of a single line.
Love Yourself: Her, as the start of this series, is plain and simple, while the beginning of Love Yourself: Tear is the transition. White color for the Love Yourself: Her album represents purity and innocence as well as coldness and emptiness on the negative side. While the black color for the Love Yourself: Tear album represents the darkness and hardships, which indicates that BTS story has undergone a great change. Their title track in that album, “Fake Love”, depicts this change. In Love Yourself: Answer album the color has become very rich. The hologram elements are used in the album packaging, and the flower elements have changed from flower to heart. The last album of the series has completed the process of love yourself. The aim of this series is to convey to fans that everyone should learn to love themselves, regardless of color, gender orientation, or class. This is well depicted in a series of album arts: everyone is a unique flower but we struggle to find ourselves until we understand and accept ourselves.
The main theme of the albums, Map of The Soul: Persona and Map of The Soul: 7, is inspired by Carl Jung’s map of the psyche. Hence, the album background for both of them is a map with markers. In the Map Of The Soul: 7 album, we see a major emphasis on the number seven. The album art is inspired by the story of the seven members.
In an interview with The Korea Herald, one of the designers who worked on the album art for the Map of the Soul: 7 album said, “With the seven members having spent seven years together as a group, we wanted to use layers to create a flattened ‘7’ which embodies an accumulation of their shadows, personas, and stories,” each version depicts different personas of the members. In the same interview, the design team explained that Version No. 1 drew inspiration from swans, representing a longing for perfection as well as vulnerability and innocence. Inspired by black swans, the second version strikes a darker tone and uses a curvy shape to represent the group’s glamorous shadows. Straight lines were emphasized to give an impression of strength and depict a sense of duty in Version No. 3. In version No. 4 the layer was arranged in a way to represent harmony and unity to represent the group’s ego and identity. All the versions together tell a comprehensive story of the members.
All these details add to the experience of the album. Although music is auditory, the album covers are there to visually represent the underlying meanings attached to the music, which brings all the different forms of art together for an overall more fulfilling experience.
DISCLAIMER: We do not own any audio & visual content in this video except for the editing. ALL RIGHTS BELONG TO THE RIGHTFUL OWNERS. No copyright infringement intended.
Written By: Celestia
Edited By: Esma
Checked By: Juju
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