Digital Illustration as a Visualization of Romantic Messages based on Sal Priadi's Music Album "Markers and such Pens Flashdisk"

Abstract

This research aims to design and analyze digital illustration designs as a visualization medium for the romantic messages contained in Sal Priadi's music album entitled “Markers and such Pens Flashdisk”. The album is viewed as a hybrid narrative that combines everyday elements with modern romantic poetics that are highly personal and intimate for listeners in today's digital era. The method used in this research is the digital art creation method which includes the stage of observation of lyrics from 15 songs in the album, melody interpretation, creative sketching, to the final detailing stage using Procreate software. The results show that digital illustration is able to act as an intersemiotic bridge that transforms auditory emotions into a cohesive, narrative, and aesthetically strong visual form. The resulting illustrations are divided into three main categories based on the dominant emotional spectrum: happiness, hope, and sadness. Through an aesthetic and visual semiotic approach, this research proves that visual elements such as color, lines, and object symbolism can significantly strengthen the emotional resonance of song lyrics for the audience. The use of digital painting techniques provides high flexibility in exploring dramatic textures and lighting, which in turn is able to visually capture the nuances of Sal Priadi's romanticism. This analysis uses Roland Barthes' semiotic framework to explore the denotation and connotation meanings of each visual element presented in the illustration design. Ultimately, digital illustration is not merely an aesthetic complement, but an independent visual representation in building the identity of a musical work in the increasingly competitive and dynamic global digital era.