Yung Lean – “Lazy Summer Day” / “Chinese Restaurant” single cover

“Lazy Summer Day” / “Chinese Restaurant” is a single by Swedish rapper Yung Lean, released on YEAR001.

Coming from the Soundcloud scene, Yung Lean is used to mixtapes and EPs of all kinds. His releases of full albums are rarer. Active since 2010, this single is part of the projects marking his return and offers a different, more experimental style of music.

The success of Yung Lean’s career is particular due to his very strong media coverage. He plays on this with the cover design, featuring a photo that is surely created by artificial intelligence and therefore based on image data from big search engines. It’s therefore possible that Yung Lean used his name as a prompt to have a portrait generated, based on the images available on the internet. This technique of having images created by artificial intelligence is new and still rare to see applied to album covers.

In contrast with the image made with advanced technology, pushing a new and futuristic aesthetic, the typeface is classic: the two track titles are shown in white in the top corners, set in Times New Roman. A basic typography that supports a complex and novel image.