To begin the design process I developed a mood board as I listened to and researched the album. The mood board contained images from Kanye West concerts, previous albums, and images that related to the concept and tone of the album. All of these images were gathered to inspire my final design.

To better understand Jesus is King and its themes, I created a mind map as I listened to the album on repeat for several hours. I discovered four major themes that span the album's 27 minute runtime: light, family, water (renewal), and justice. The discovery of these themes heavily influenced the following design iterations and final outcomes.

When listening through Jesus is King you can't help but interpret as a deconstruction of Kanye's old life and a revaluation of what values he holds for himself and his family. This broader idea of deconstructing and then reconstructing ones life, beliefs, and morals led to a collage aesthetic for the album cover design. Collage often involves deconstructing an image and then reconstructing it to create something new, so it made a lot of sense that the final album cover was a collage.

The first several drafts of the cover used imagery very literally. Water and light were depicted plainly and the crown of thorns was just a frame that encircled Kanye's portrait. As I continued to iterate, I felt like the image of Kanye kneeling was the most interesting aspect of the whole collage, so I decided to remove any distracting collage elements in favor of a cohesive final image that focused on Kanye.

The final album cover depicts Kanye West kneeling on a floating disk in space. A light beam is cast over Kanye from above. This artwork feels humble and heavenly while also incorporating the themes of light and water from the album. The light beam used in the collage is from an image of an old Kanye tour, turning something from his past into something new.

In addition to the album cover art, I created a poster for Kanye's Jesus is King movie and Spotify mockups.