Designing Christian Forshaw's Album Cover
They say it's who you know and in this case, I'm lucky enough to know Christian's lovely wife, Sarah. I first heard about Christian through Sarah during a shared yoga class. She mentioned she wouldn't be there the following week because she was going to her husband's concert at the The Temple Church in London. My downward dog ears pricked up.
Fast forward five years and I've designed his latest album cover. It pays to be curious folks.
Whilst Christian is a musician, composer and producer and I am a visual artist, we face similar creative challenges both within our work and how we work (often alone). After bumping into each other on a walk we got chatting and agreed a creative meet up might be just the boost we both needed.
During this session where Christian played saxophone and I sketched, I was lucky enough to have a sneak preview of a couple of the pieces from his upcoming album. It was a really precious moment. I love being around other creative people, I find it inspiring and energising and I felt like I had been privy to something very special.
It was after this session that Christian commissioned me to create his album cover. I was excited that I might get to add 'album cover' to my portfolio - this had been a long-time goal of mine.
I understood the concept of the album and had made notes and sketches during our session, responding to what I felt in the music as he played. The words longing and layers kept coming to mind. I wanted the cover artwork to reflect that sense of layering, of both sound and time, almost like a geological cross-section. The length of the lines in the cover represent the feeling of the smooth sustained notes I heard.
Colours
The colours themselves were taken directly from a photograph Christian had captured of a sunset over the north east coast, making the piece feel both personal and true to its sense of place.
The album is called Lindisfarne and the first single, The Leiden Riddle, is an original song that paraphrases one of the earliest examples of the Northumbrian dialect. Christian wrote it for his first performance at the Holy Island Festival. The single is out now, with the full album released on November 7, 2025.
My Top 5
I've made a top 5 playlist of my favourite Christian Forshaw songs to get you started.
Hire Me
If you're a musician, author, or anyone else who needs a creative, visual representation of your work, I'd love to help. Get in touch with me here for album art, book covers and more.
Find Out More About Christian Forshaw
- @christianforshaw
- Website
- christianforshaw.com
- Live Music
- Red Kite Concerts
- Spotify
- Christian Forshaw Spotify
Find Out More About Grace Davidson
- @gracedavidsonsoprano
- Website
- gracedavidsonsoprano.com
- Spotify
- Grace Davidson Soprano Spotify
P.S
Just for fun and because I can, I re-coloured my Holy Island and Bamburgh travel posters for this blog post using the colours from the album cover.
P.P.S.
Since writing this, Decca Classics picked up Lindisfarne for a full worldwide release under the title Lindisfarne: Beyond the Causeway, with the artwork changed to a photograph for its new life on the label. I couldn't be happier for Christian and Grace.
Decca know their audience and how to put a record like this in front of the world, and I love that my original cover got to play its small part in the journey before handing over to the next chapter.
Huge congratulations to Christian — you can pre-order the album on Decca Classics or listen on Spotify.
