The 67th Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on February 2nd, local time. Following the consecutive wins for “Best Album Packaging Award” in 2022 and 2023, Taiwan has once again had two design teams nominated for this year’s awards, showcasing Taiwan’s strong soft power on the international design stage.
On January 31st, two nominated design teams from Taiwan held a joint interview with Chinese media at the Taiwan Center in Los Angeles to share their creative ideas and thoughts on being nominated.
Director Jian Deyuan of the Taiwan Academy welcomed and congratulated the two teams, expressing his hope for them to achieve great success at this year’s Grammy Awards. Despite the shift towards streaming in the music industry, physical album packaging design still holds significance. Taiwanese designers use album packaging to showcase the clever fusion of auditory and visual elements, allowing the international community to see Taiwan’s cultural creativity.
Designer Li Pei-ci was nominated for the album “Sick Sick Sick Sick” by the band “One Tiger One Tiger.” A graduate of National Chiao Tung University’s Institute of Applied Arts, she has won the German iF Design Award for commercial brand planning and currently works as a designer at the Pingtung National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium. The inspiration for the nominated album design came from the artwork of embroidery artist Zhou Yixin. The physical album cover features a bright silver design with a crack resembling the unhealed “sickness.”
“Sick Sick Sick Sick” is a rare “cassette tape” album, and the traditional lyrics sheet is replaced with a “prescription” design to deeply convey the mood of the songs through visual language. The album also includes a pill-shaped badge. Li Pei-ci believes that the significance of buying albums for collection outweighs actual listening for modern consumers. Album packaging has become a fusion of music and visual arts, using a cassette tape not only to present the image of blood but also inspired by communication with the members of “One Tiger One Tiger,” conceptualizing the design of the entire album as a small gift box.
Designers Huang Jiaxian and Ye Chang-li from the Onion Design team were nominated for the album “The Jug Band Millionaires” by the band Mudflat Wanderers. This is Onion Design’s third nomination for the Grammy’s Best Album Packaging Award, all collaborations with the Mudflat Wanderers.
Huang Jiaxian, originally from Hong Kong, studied design and art history at the University of Houston in Texas and has extensive experience in music bands. The design concept this time pays tribute to the Jug Band music pioneers. The album features a 33-page booklet to recreate a “retro music sheet,” meticulously restoring the 1920s printing style from the cover to the inner pages, guiding listeners back to the golden age of Jug Band music.
The lyric pages of the album feature many “small advertisement” copy, imitating the music sheets of the time and conveying the rich essence that the music creators want to express. Huang Jiaxian used over 20 handwritten fonts to create an interesting interaction and fusion between Chinese characters and Western music.
Vice Chairman Huang Qunyan of the Los Angeles Taiwan Center stated that the Taiwan Center is not just a venue for events but also an important bridge for promoting Taiwan culture and connecting with overseas Taiwanese generations. She was pleased to hold this press conference at the center before its demolition and reconstruction. “The process of participation itself is an affirmation. Whether you win or not, from the perspective of us Taiwanese Americans, you are winners.” She emphasized that the nomination of Taiwanese teams for the Grammy’s “Best Album Packaging Award” is a recognition, shining a light on Taiwan on the world stage.