In 1938, Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as its first art director. He is credited with inventing the concept of album covers and cover art, replacing the plain covers used before.
In 2018, I took on a special project with ScoreMore Shows and Interscope Records to design a unique album cover for the new generation.
Fans loved the finished concept, creating a repeatable blueprint for immersive storytelling on Instagram & YouTube.
Explore one of the earliest 360° album covers ever designed on the immersive web, (produced 80 years after Alex Steinweiss’ original idea).
You can swipe/tap/click around to explore, depending on your device. On mobile you can activate your gyroscope by clicking the “compass” icon in the 360° viewer, and you can also go fullscreen to immerse yourself!
These are some of the things I created for this campaign:
Flat album cover (below) and immersive 360° album cover (above)
Immersive 360° website built & hosted on Kuula
3D Depth-mapped Graphics for 3D Photo effect on Facebook
Flat & 360° video assets to share on social media and YouTube
Design templates for Photoshop & After Effects to help junior team members work quickly in a new medium
“Best Practice” Playbook for sharing immersive concepts on web and social
An interaction map & self-service tool for the client to make updates
Case Study Highlights
World-first interactive campaign.
This was a unique campaign made possible by new technology and innovative thinking. Since this project was launched, artists like Billie Eilish have also turned their websites into a 360° immersive experience.
More than 150K lifetime views.
This project was initially accessible via URL where tens of thousands of fans visited during Sammy’s last release cycle. It currently lives as a 360° video on YouTube.
20% engagement in launch week.
Fans flooded into Sammy’s site every time he made it his bio link. During the first two weeks of the project, 1 in 5 fans took a next step on the site to visit streaming, social, or merch channels.
Over 1 minute avg. session time
People spent real time exploring Sammy’s virtual planet. Even after the project had been live for months, new visitors were still spending an average of more than 1 minute in the concept.
Accessible via URL, no downloads.
This project was built for easy access and intuitive exploration. All fans needed was the URL, (trillsammy.com), and they could have a fully interactive experience without any downloads.
Embed it anywhere on the web.
The 360° viewer for this site can be added to any website or blog. This makes it a powerful & unique addition to a PR campaign… you can turn any post into an interactive experience.
TESTIMONIAL
“Mapping out our creative ideas and integrating the tech into our site was executed flawlessly.”
— Troy Dubrowsky, Trill Sammy’s Manager