Vinyl cover design and related visuals, 2024.
The project
A joint Lithuanian-French field recording residency in Rouen, part of Saison de la Lituanie en France 2024 – Lithuania’s largest cultural export programme to date. Sound artists from both countries recorded the Nemunas and Seine rivers, creating soundscapes from the recordings. The result was released as a double vinyl record.
Nemuno7 is a cultural art platform based in Kaunas, operating at the intersection of ecology, sound, and contemporary art.
The brief –
and the absence of one
No visual reference material for vinyl existed. The record had no established identity, no imagery, no precedent. The design had to be built entirely from the conceptual core of the project: two rivers, two countries, the act of listening as something physical and durational.
Several visual directions were developed
before arriving at the final cover, which was based on the fluidity of water and the idea of sound as a representation of waves. The more rigid, undulating lines were both a symbolic and referential choice – evoking sound waves as traced by recording devices – while at the same time seeking to maintain a controlled sense of natural, elemental force:
What was delivered
• Vinyl cover design
• Web header visuals for the Nemuno7 platform
• Poster designs developed for Nemuno7 – produced but not printed.
Web header variations:
Poster variations:
The project’s phase in Rouen, France involved preparing for the concert and processing the material that later became part of the “Nemunas // Seine” vinyl release:
(Photos by Gediminas „Skrandis“ Banaitis)
The connection to the writing
This project later became a point of departure for a critical essay on listening and perception published by the Lithuanian Music Information Centre – on how field recordings resist the camera-trained nervous system and demand a different quality of attention.
Project context
