Madonna: Erotica - Expanded Box Set
MUSIC PACKAGING CONCEPT ART & DESIGN : APRIL - SEPTEMBER 2020
MUSIC PACKAGING CONCEPT ART & DESIGN : APRIL - SEPTEMBER 2020
"As her stardom snowballed through the Eighties and early Nineties, AIDS decimated the scene that helped birth Madonna... Just as racism and the Black Lives Matter movement shaped Beyoncé’s Lemonade, AIDS and ACT UP – the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the direct action advocacy and educational group whose motto was “Silence = Death” – yielded Erotica and Sex... Sensuality was merely part of the picture: Erotica is Madonna’s concept album about love and intimacy under the shadow of plague." - Rolling Stone
"If Madonna’s image seemed aggressive up until this point, her music was warm, inviting, and accessible (it was pop by definition—hell, she defined pop music in the ‘80s), which made her next-generation version of feminism a lot easier to swallow—or, to some, tolerable—in the era of AIDS and Reagan. By 1992, Madonna was an icon—untouchable, literally and figuratively—and Erotica was the first time the artist’s music took on a decidedly combative, even threatening tone, and most people didn’t want to hear it." - Slant Magazine
"Apart from her three greatest hits, Madonna has not shown much interest in repackaging and expanding her back catalogue... The Sex book may be one controversial chapter, in a career full of controversy, that Madonna wishes to keep firmly shut. However, I think if [an Erotica] super deluxe edition was [released]... there would be massive demand from collectors and Madonna fans alike." - SuperDeluxeEdition.com
After the release of my Immaculate Collection box set project, I chose Erotica to be the next Madonna project I would work on, as it's one of her most important, challenging, creative albums, and something that would stretch me as a designer.
My main design inspiration was Fabien Baron, who was one of the original designers of Sex and Erotica, and his style and brilliance has only increased in the last 30 years with his award-winning work at Interview, Vogue, Calvin Klein and Harper's Bazaar. His book Fabien Baron: Works 1983-2019 in particular was a great inspiration to me.
I wanted this box set to look something like how he might design it in 2020, with a focus on the large, strong typography hidden away in Erotica's 1992 longbox, booklet and CD artwork. I moved away from the bright blue of the album art and stuck to a limited palette of black, white, silver and gold. The single artworks are replicas of the original designs from 1992-1993.
Browse more of my Madonna box set projects:
Listen to my appearance on the podcast "Inside the Groove":