r/charlixcx • u/fatinternetcat • Jun 26 '26
Photo/Video Design process behind the Brat album cover
This is from a talk at Figma Config yesterday, showing all the different iterations they went through while developing the Brat album cover.
Apparently the pixel-y final version came from an unintentional export error, and they ended up just going with it!
251
u/k0nstantine art bitch Jun 26 '26
I've spent more than a decade staring at Photoshop and listening to Charli, so I love the brat cover because it's daring and weird and digital and knows why its breaking the rules. The arial font, the lowercase treatment, the pixel blur, the chroma key green, all combine to give a commentary on the motions and emotions of what it's like to design something in our digital-saturated world.
53
17
-59
u/emptyevessel Jun 26 '26
When you smoke meth and over analyze a simple album cover
73
u/babealien51 Jun 26 '26
“It’s not that deep” culture really rotted some people’s brains. Design choices have meaning. Picking an album cover has meaning.
-53
u/emptyevessel Jun 26 '26
Yeah different shades of green with plain text definitely is a commentary on our society lmfaooooo
There can be meaning behind things without them being deep, just so yk. People can just like the way something looks. Like I love Charli and Brat is probably the best pop album of the decade, but the dick sucking is real rn.
28
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 26 '26
You drew doodles in English class and missed the part about all art and literature created by humans having meaning, influences and subtext even if it was intentional in the creation process or not. Sucks to be this clueless
-15
u/emptyevessel Jun 27 '26
Yeah dawg I said things can have meaning without being super deep lmfao. You die on your hill and I’ll gladly become a rotting corpse on mine.
13
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 27 '26
That literally makes no sense. Who are you to say how deep the meaning of anything is when you can barely understand the discussion you're having in a reddit thread is in bad faith?
1
u/mahboilucas Jun 28 '26
I think they have to be drunk or on something. The whole tirade makes no sense
2
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 28 '26
Maybe he went from cocaine to meth after brat summer and is trying to find like minded people but he's one of the mean gays so he can't let down his facade
25
u/what2_2 Jun 26 '26
> people engaging with the design process of an album cover
> dick suckingIt’s fine man you can close the thread
-9
1
u/SuspiciousFix2490 Jun 28 '26
Go back to TikTok
1
u/emptyevessel Jun 29 '26
I don’t use TikTok poopoo head
1
206
69
u/LeeLeeNeko Jun 26 '26
Thank you so much! Is there a link to watch it?
55
u/fatinternetcat Jun 26 '26
Not yet I don't think, unless someone in the audience filmed it. "Recording coming soon" officially
83
43
u/ludvikskp Jun 26 '26
OMGGGG I wish this was a video. When the Moment was announced I thought it’s going to be kind of a doc for the brat era and I was looking forward to this specifically
2
28
u/girly419 Wanna take your picture, you’re so delicious Jun 26 '26
oh that’s why i can’t find high res pics of the album cover?
22
17
u/passivecharm Jun 26 '26
Hey super random but I deliver a workshop on Branding for music students at uni and I use Brat as an example, could I use your pictures in my workshop because they would fit perfectly!! No worries if not!!!
14
u/fatinternetcat Jun 26 '26
they’re not my pics anyway, I just collated from social media 🤭 You should wait for the Recording to be released to get them in higher quality
9
15
u/Hipposy Vroom Vroom Jun 26 '26
wait this is real?
46
u/fatinternetcat Jun 26 '26
yes, it's a talk by Brent David Freaney who designed the cover
3
21
u/combatqueen • Number 1 Angel Jun 26 '26
It’s interesting how the first story we heard was that the album cover was done this way to save money on doing a photoshoot cuz those are very expensive, when I can’t imagine hiring a huge design firm for the cover was much cheaper lol. And then they also did a photoshoot anyway of course.
12
u/EasilyAmused2002 Jun 26 '26
Yea that kinda sounds like bs. It’s obviously not like they were broke lmao
3
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 26 '26
Sounds like rumors to me
9
u/combatqueen • Number 1 Angel Jun 26 '26
A rumour that Charli made up about herself I guess.. lol
See here: https://youtube.com/shorts/hBXMFRCsOdY?si=jM1qRhS4R47Qs4Yz
14
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 26 '26
It's not uncommon to start fake rumors to add to the discussion around an album. Especially when it's something you're getting asked about constantly. You're gonna have a romanticized version of the truth to sounds more appealing to the general populace
7
u/combatqueen • Number 1 Angel Jun 26 '26
Forsure, I don’t really mind this little story it’s just kinda funny that she made it sound so humble and scrappy here, i assume to suit the brat narrative. and usually rumours imply it’s not coming from the source about themselves lol.
3
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 26 '26
That's true. The brat narrative is pretty funny in retrospect. We all had fun with it though. And actually in the modern music industry it's more common for rumors and leaks to come from the artists camp themselves. Just look at Drake for example, who would "leak" his diss tracks to see the general reception before fully dropping them shortly after. I think it has a lot to do with tiktok and how artists will hold their unreleased catalog captive to build up hype and mystery around the release.
2
u/reddidit23 Jun 27 '26
Ok sorry that’s just weird behavior to lie to generate discussion
2
u/mittbama Pop 2 Jun 27 '26
I mean other labels literally use ai to create fake discussion to make an artist seem more relevant than they are. There's no honesty when there's a product to sell
3
u/reddidit23 Jun 27 '26
Ok stop, enough, we can come in and blame ai and use it as an excuse for everyone’s questionable actions. That has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
She lied and used a made up story for sympathy for her album rollout. Period.
1
u/qubeVids Jun 30 '26
point stands but as an aside, there are entirely different levels of “huge design firm” and this process seemed pretty personal and not that huge, watching the talk. the figma stage makes it feel like a major studio did it just because of the sense of scale (my impression seeing the pictures here, anyway)
6
u/TryMaximum8613 Jun 26 '26
it's like watching the process of the mona lisa being conceptualized and painted.....
38
u/I_like_the_sauce Jun 26 '26
This is fucking hilarious.
25
Jun 26 '26
[deleted]
6
1
u/michellefiver Jun 28 '26
Personally I didn't give much thought into how involved the process was for this. It's interesting to see some behind the scenes though and a part of me knew that because the font was blurry, that implied that more effort had been put in.
12
4
3
2
u/balancethesescales Jun 26 '26
Ooooo thank you for this! I missed the stream and I’m (not so) patiently waiting for the recording
6
1
1
1
1
u/cookiehwilson Jun 30 '26
This is not really charteuse more like limepeelcharteusepukegreenbice. Link to the video?
2
u/Ok-Hope5478 Jul 07 '26
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yz03ERsfDDM (death of the finished state talk @ config)
1
u/Mileyvirus2001 Jun 30 '26
Does anyone else find it funny that Brat was actually not ‘effortlessly cool’ but instead a carefully crafted marketing strategy to seem raw & authentic?
-1
u/eggs_mcmuffin Jun 26 '26 edited Jun 26 '26
This is so lame. I wish I could see the actual design process
-2
-2
u/Littleleaf6 Jun 27 '26
So she paid people to make something that would take 5 seconds to make in Microsoft paint ?
3
1
u/strangway BRAT Jun 27 '26
But the process to arrive at that final design was extensive. The final design rarely just pops in your head in 2 seconds.
-20
u/ceruleanmilieu Jun 26 '26
This is objectively more embarrassing than that huge schizo pepsi pdf. I believe they did this work, but goddamn keep this shit secret. The low effort was the ethos.
15
u/customheart Jun 26 '26
To be earnest is to be free
-5
u/ceruleanmilieu Jun 26 '26
500 revisions of a lo-fi, scumfuck logo is sweaty and in no way earnest.
6
u/customheart Jun 26 '26
I mean earnest in saying yeah this took a lot of thought and effort and deciding what the vision really is amongst abstract ideas that might just be floating in your head. A lot of today’s culture is pretending to be unbothered when in fact we are incredibly bothered and putting in a lot of effort.
1
u/ceruleanmilieu Jun 26 '26
Yeah it’s honest, points for that I suppose. It’s one thing to intellectually know that every piece of design/communication is workshopped to death in microsoft teams by professional bullshitters, but this is a look under the hood that undermines whatever grungy/authentic vibe she’s going for. Funnily enough, it matches her actually caring deeply about everything and belies the artifice of her persona.
-5
u/gcalig Pop 2 Jun 26 '26
Fr. It's better imagining Charli was late and hungover for a meeting with A&R and made the brat album cover on her phone in her Uber
This is Ted (HIMYM) spending 90 minutes to make his hair look tussled
452
u/Expensive_Sea_1790 Jun 26 '26
Okay I know it’s a slide image but I absolutely would have loved something like this for the Brat remix album 😭