Humpback Whale songs are transferred from year to year. They evolve similarly to the verbally transmitted tribal lore of Aboriginal cultures from where the term Songlines is derived. Songlines documents the evolution of the intricate and beautiful East Australian Humpback song. Stephen used the audio waveform of each year's Whale song as the unifying theme for the design. Each piece has a unique fingerprint that visually shows the progression of the audio over time. As a result, the cover and booklet design accurately reflected the hour of pristine digital recordings selected from five different years between 1992 and 2008, drawing the listener into this mysterious and majestic world.
Photography: Dr. Trish Franklin & Dr. Wally Franklin
Recording and Mastering: Mark Franklin
Creative Direction: Stephen Franklin
Graphic Design: Stephen Franklin
Illustration: Stephen Franklin
Stephen went with a clean white cover, allowing the audio waveforms to be easily identifiable.
This walk through of the design shows the audio waveform used to define each section of the booklet and the Whale song it relates to.
The line work represents the axis of movement the whales have in their environment.
This page shows the background image 'fingerprint' of the whale song audio for the 1998 Songline.
Franklin began with a pencil illustration for the front cover which he later developed into a digital illustration.
The completed digital illustration for the Songlines cover, showing the fluid shape of a Humpback whale swimming up through the slices of Whale song audio.
