Graphic Design

Design in the Context of Music Production

Graphic design for music and entertainment differs from general commercial design in one fundamental way: it must work as a component of a larger creative identity. An album cover is not a standalone design project — it needs to reflect the music, the artist's visual aesthetic, and the marketing positioning of the release all at once.

171 Entertainment's design work grew directly from our video production practice. Working closely with artists across long-form productions gave us an unusually clear picture of how they wanted to be seen. The design work that followed was a natural extension of that understanding — visual materials that were consistent with the world we'd helped create on screen.

Our archive of graphic design work spans the full range of print and digital materials that a working music artist requires. Much of it was produced as part of larger production packages that also included music video and EPK content.

Album Artwork

Album artwork remains one of the most significant design commissions in music, even in an era of streaming thumbnails. The artwork must work at poster scale and at 300 pixels square — often simultaneously, given the range of contexts in which it appears.

Tour and Event Materials

Live performance requires a different category of design thinking. Tour materials have to read quickly, communicate essential information (artist, date, venue, ticket price) and attract attention in cluttered physical environments — on poles, in shop windows, or on a venue wall alongside dozens of other posters.

Tour Posters

Posters for Australian country and pop music tours across regional and metropolitan venues. Design must balance the visual requirements of the artist's identity with the practical requirements of legible event information. Effective tour poster design significantly affects walk-up ticket sales and awareness in regional markets where digital advertising has lower reach.

Stage Backdrops and Banners

Large-format display design for touring shows. These materials are seen at scale, from distance, under stage lighting — design choices that work on a computer screen often fail badly in this context. We design for the live environment, not the screen.

Merchandise Graphics

T-shirt and merchandise graphics require particular design discipline — artwork must reduce to a single colour or two colours for screen printing without losing its character. Strong merchandise design creates revenue, but it also extends an artist's brand presence far beyond the venue.

Press and Promotional Materials

Press kit design forms a critical component of an artist's industry-facing presentation. These materials are seen by booking agents, media, label A&R, and festival programmers — a professional design communicates that the artist and their team take their careers seriously.

• Artist biography layout — designed biography documents with artist photography, formatted for media and industry use
• Press kit folders and covers — physical and digital press kit packaging that creates a strong first impression
• Media quote cards — designed assets featuring press quotes for social media and promotional use
• Fact sheet design — formatted one-page artist information sheets for venue promoters and radio stations
• Award entry materials — design work produced to support ARIA, CMAA, and other award submissions

Our press material design is closely coordinated with our EPK production work — video and print materials are designed to function as a consistent package rather than independently.

Digital and Social Media Design

The shift to social-media-first artist promotion has created a continuous demand for designed visual content. Unlike print materials which have a defined production cycle, social content requires an ongoing supply of designed assets.

We've developed social media asset packages for artists that provide a consistent visual foundation across platforms — profile imagery, header designs, post templates, and story formats that maintain the artist's visual identity without requiring individual design commissions for every post.

The photography archive, managed in coordination with our photography production division, provides the primary visual content that these social media design assets draw from.

Design and Video: An Integrated Approach

The most effective promotional campaigns we've worked on have treated video and print design as parts of the same visual system. When a music video, an album cover, a tour poster, and an artist's social media presence all draw from the same visual logic, the cumulative effect on audience recognition is substantially stronger than the sum of individual parts.

171 Entertainment's integrated approach — producing video, photography, and design under the same creative direction — is what makes this level of consistency achievable. For artists working with multiple vendors across different creative disciplines, maintaining visual coherence is a constant challenge. Working with a single production partner removes that complexity.

See our project portfolio for examples of integrated productions that combined video, photography, and design components.

Design Enquiries

Looking for design support for an upcoming release, tour, or campaign? We work on projects at every scale — from single artwork to full campaign design packages.

Learn more about our full range of production services