Secret 7" 2020 Charity record sleeve design

Established in 2012, Secret 7" is an annual event combining music and art for charitable causes. Each year 7 well known tracks are selected and 100 of each are pressed to 7" vinyl. It is then an open invite to the world to create their own interpretation of a track for the record sleeve design. 700 lucky creatives are subsequently picked and their artwork is exhibited and sold as one-off pieces for charity. Now for the secret, the purchaser is unaware of who designed the sleeve or even the track it contains, until they have parted with their hard-earned cash.

This year the money raised was donated to help refugees and the exhibition was hosted at NOW Gallery, Greenwich Peninsula, London. With the Covid restrictions in place, a 360 Virtual tour was created.

Secret 7's profile attracts some of biggest names within and outside the creative industry. Amongst the 700 records for this year was artwork from Lubaina Himid, Anish Kapoor, Tacita Dean, Mark Wallinger, Shona Heath, The Connor Brothers, Helen Beard, Jeremy Deller, Lotte Andersen, Stanley Donwood, Jadé Fadojutimi, Ragnar Kjartansson, Maya Hayuk, Gavin Turk, Unskilled Worker and Michel Gondry. In total the charity received almost 6,000 artworks.

For 2020 the track options were –
Aretha Franklin – One Step Ahead / Bob Dylan – Blind Willie McTell / Foo Fighters – This Is A Call / The Internet – Come Over / Koffee – Toast / Miles Davis – Miles Runs The Voodoo Down / Vampire Weekend – Harmony Hall

I selected the track – This Is A Call – by the Foo Fighters. The meaning of this track, even after reading the lyrics is ambiguous. However, I have always felt it sounded like a rallying call to take action, with the apt lyric 'it's been too long'. With the world in turmoil, this connected strongly with the plight of our environment – a cause I am passionate about. I had recently completed a personal typographic design project – 1896 – the year human induced climate change was first predicted – focusing on climate change which felt like a perfect fit. Three design iterations – two illustration styles, one typographic design – based on the personal project were submitted, with the typographic experiment making the final cut.

Sadly, Secret 7" revealed that 2020 would be the last year they would be conducting the event, which made selection for the third and final time – 2015 / 2016 – even more rewarding.