It’s just over a week since the release of Laura Marling‘s 6th album: Semper Femina.

At an ever-emphasised young age (now 27), half a dozen albums is no mean feat alone, but to consider time after time each record has been greeted with the highest of praise, it’s no hidden secret that Laura Marling is one of the most celebrated singer-songwriters of our time.

Semper Femina continues this trend. Translated from latin as Always Woman, it’s no surprise that femininity provides the focal point for the album. It’s a truthful and personal exploration which at the same time sees Laura experiment with new sounds, arguably producing her most sonically varied album to date, even at just 9 tracks long.

Soothing‘s bass not only provides power to its opening but has understandably found favour as the ice-breaker for the set list on tour. Released as the first single from the album it’s familiar to those attending and if anything is more powerful when performed live as you witness Laura stretch effortlessly and confidently for the notes within the addictive chorus.

Other highlights on the record include Don’t Pass Me By, undeniably the closest LM has come to putting herself forward to pen the next James Bond theme tune. The atmosphere of the track evokes such opening titles in the film franchise and the female silhouettes within each one, a connection which seems a little more than coincidental for Semper Femina‘s subject.

Always This Way  follows on, with the first few plucks of the guitar strings setting up a chipper sounding track, but with lyrics jumping from asking “must every heart break / like a wave on the bay” and “…I wonder if all my pondering / is taking up too much ground” to admitting mistakes and exclaiming that “my debts have been paid”, this is Laura at her enigmatic best.

Wild Once is a beautiful construction, jumping constantly between clear and delicate vocals to delicately played guitar. A track which leaves a lasting impression while entering into the album’s final third, but we hazard a guess it was one many returned to after their first complete listen.

Perfectly paired with this is Next Time, a song which provides the second in a trilogy of music videos directed by Laura over the course of releasing Semper Femina. Soothing brought her directorial debut and the final clip came in just the last few days, a video to accompany the record’s second track: The Valley.

Nothing, Not Nearly closes the door on SF, sounding the most different to what was heard in the preview sessions leading up to release. This is thanks to the heavy strum of electric guitar which accentuates its beginning and drops in throughout the remainder of the track, an impossible proposition during solo performances with acoustic guitar already in hand.

But come the end of the finale, we seem to be left on the other side of the door, staring into the open world in front of us as the sound of its slam is greeted with bird song, giving the listener some time to reflect on what we’ve just heard and on a job, incredibly well done.

There’s a ‘cosy’ feel throughout Semper Femina despite its regular handling of often difficult subjects and ideas, such as heartbreak, loss and looking back on what once was. Conveying the homely feel are the footsteps and birdsong on the closing track, the jingle of keys and the audible press of a play button bridging Wild Fire with Don’t Pass Me By  and the white noise which comes before the press of stop, along with the creak of chair, delicate laugh and captured comment that draws Nouel to a close. This makes the SF experience real, as if sat in that same room during its recording.

However this isn’t unique to this record, it’s an ever present feeling throughout Laura Marling releases as the voice feels so close that each listen is akin to an intimate and private performance. 

At Seafront we thought about this and with the release of teasers, music and lyric videos in the build up to Semper Femina we imagined a way to make the listening experience ever more comfortable.

With an early March release and tour, combined with the UK’s fickle and changeable weather we set about designing Semper scarves, warming your walk and cosying your queuing at an upcoming LM show.

We started creating the designs for the scarves quite some time before the release of the album. At this point all that had been revealed was the record’s cover, the Soothing music video and lyric video for Wild Fire. 

However from just this evidence it was clear the colour palette for the release and promotional material was to follow a pastel choice.

And so along with those sampled above, we also chose a purple which was featured on the LM web store during the pre-orders for the album.

We felt this sat perfectly with the two other more obvious choices for the scarf. The decision was then later cemented after discovering that a similar purple made its way to provide the background within the Nothing Not Nearly lyric video.

Deciding not to over-saturate the design with colour, this maximum 3 tone palette was chosen and the next decision lay with the use of text.

The song titles which we considered to be a feature of the scarf were to use the same font seen in the Soothing music video back then as well as the Next Time and The Valley clips since released.

A convincing link was found between these and the Century Schoolbook Bold font, and we knew that with some minor adjustments to characteristics such as vertical / horizontal scale and width between letters, we could achieve the desired appearance.

A header from the LM website offered the album title and name which we previously imagined would make a great focal / centre piece to the design.

At the header’s heart is a sigil (symbol). This particular one centred between Semper and Femina is used exclusively on the album cover and alongside the title, making a clear relation between the two. Others can be seen throughout the lyric videos and since the album’s release, can be found within the accompanying booklet.

It was decided two version of the scarf would be thought up, a cryptic and a more explicit / obvious design.

Click on the first image below to take a look through designs for the cryptic scarf and read our comments on its fruition:

It was decided the only text we wanted to place on this more cryptic design was the album’s title. Although recognisable now to those familiar with the record, the phrase Semper Femina wouldn’t mean anything to anyone without a few lessons of latin under their belts. Balanced with the album’s main sigil on either side, the back additionally sees all of the other symbols which form the artwork of the album.

Using only these symbols without any song titles creates a real design orientated look, a stylish visual for music it represents. There are in fact 9 of these sigils seen within the album’s booklet, however the one which has been removed was done so as it felt unbalanced compared to the others and with all of these appearing vertically for this exact reason, it was decided that it just didn’t quite sit with our idea. In addition to this, by having 8 instead, 4 would sit comfortably either side of the main SF sigil which provides the centre point on this side.

If the colour within the scarf were to be expanded using the pre-chosen palette, we imagined something like this. Using vertical lines the design could be split to house the main sigil at either end, as well as break up Semper Femina to make a clear distinction between these unfamiliar phrases.

The only other area we considered adding characters into was in conjunction with the symbols on this sides of the scarf. Simply placing ‘L’ ‘M’ at the base of this provides another nod to the album and specifically its creator, yet in a manner that importantly doesn’t give the game away.

Looking again at the back of the scarf we considered ways of introducing the colour palette here too, this included a border as well as using them to divide each of the sigils. You will also notice here how the centre symbol is more announced than the others. Being this little bit bolder allows it to stand out and signify its place as the primary symbol representing Semper Femina.

Below you can take a look through our ideas for the more obvious design relating to Semper Femina  along with our comments:

A similar one colour design commenced our ideas for the more obvious Semper Femina scarf. Here the main sigil again provides the central focal point on the front, however it is bookended by the album’s name and artist. The back of the design then goes on to list the record’s tracks, divided each time by one of the symbols. At the time of this design we were unaware that within the album’s booklet, each track has a specific sigil placed by its side. Here they were chosen purely based for design purposes (i.e. balance, ability to fit within each gap, etc).

This design did mean large parts of the scarf’s front were left blank, however the minimalism we felt was really effective and important in representing the music of Laura Marling, in which it is very often only her and guitar. Additionally, large parts of scarves go unnoticed and remain hidden while ‘in use’ so the need to fill in these gaps here didn’t feel hugely important.

An additional idea was thought up making use of the album sleeve’s colour to add a border around this original design. Symmetrical once more for the importance of balance, we love the way this plays off the more dominant cream colour.

Adding this additional colour will not only allow the scarf to be a little more eye-catching, but can also be played with in relation to the remainder of one’s outfit. The addition of the border also, though admittedly only slightly, reduces the amount of empty one-tone space on the front of the design, if preferred.

In considering this we also proposed the addition of a sigil on either side at the end of the scarf’s front. After numerous views of the ‘Wildfire’ lyric video at the time, we searched for two different symbols, though two which displayed similar design attributes. We wanted them to look balanced and as similar as possible while being in fact different to increase the visual interest in this otherwise empty space.

After some consideration and trials, we settled on these symbols. However, we didn’t feel they particularly worked with the border seen in previous designs, so this was removed and the two stripes were chosen to effectively house the sigils at the end of the scarf.

Viewed as a completed design on the front, it ensures the symmetry that we felt was really important throughout all the ideas we came up with while introducing a little more visual interest.

Laura Marling – Semper Femina

Artwork – lalobacreates.com

Let us know what you think of our designs through commenting below or getting in touch with us through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and now Tumblr. You can also email us your thoughts at seafrontmusicblog@gmail.com