EJAE has revealed the artwork for her first holiday single, “Christmas in New York,” ahead of its November 13 release. The snowy street scene, illustrated by Victoria Tentler-Krylov, includes the singer and her husband, relatives, friends and members of her team. It also contains references to the lyrics, which she has left for listeners to find once they hear the song.
Santa’s sleigh is up in the sky, but EJAE has suggested looking down at the pavement. The people walking through the snow on the cover of “Christmas in New York” include members of her family, friends and people she works with. Victoria Tentler-Krylov illustrated the scene, giving the singer a way to bring those people together in the city she had in mind when she wrote the song.
The cover was unveiled on November 6, a week before the single’s scheduled release. The scene is busy at street level, with passers-by going about ordinary things while a sleigh makes the setting recognisably seasonal. A person can take in the snow and the movement on a first look. The explanation EJAE gave alongside the image invites a second look, this time at the people who might otherwise pass without drawing attention.
She had wanted a painting. Her point of reference was a classic illustrated New Yorker cover, with its ability to suggest several lives in the space of one street scene. That choice set a particular task for Tentler-Krylov. The image needed to read clearly as a whole while giving the individual figures enough character to reward a viewer who stopped to pick them out.
EJAE and her husband, Sam Kim, are among the people represented. She has also identified her mother walking her dog. The dog is an especially useful detail in an image built around recognition. A face can be hard to distinguish at the scale of a cover, while a familiar action can tell a viewer where to look. It is the kind of ordinary detail that makes a street scene feel inhabited.
Her father is in the image, as are her brother and his family. The singer has also said that her best friend, who was her maid of honour, appears with her husband. The illustration lets all those relationships share a frame. There is no need to put the figures in the order they might occupy in a family photograph, which gives the scene room to look like a street before it reveals itself as a collection of people she knows.
Members of her creative team are there too. That detail broadens the circle beyond the family and gives the image a place for people who are part of EJAE’s working life. She has named categories of people rather than publishing a complete key to their positions. Viewers can take the list back to the picture and look for the small clues an illustrator can supply through movement and company.
There is a second set of references in the artwork. EJAE has said that some details point to the lyrics of “Christmas in New York.” She left those details undisclosed when she shared the image. For someone looking at the cover before the single comes out, the relationship between image and lyric is still a promise. The same drawing will be available to look at again when there are words to compare with it.
The singer described the song as a love letter to the way New York feels during the holidays. That description helps explain why the cover is filled with people going about their day. The city in the drawing is made from the space they share, as well as the snow and the familiar Christmas figure overhead. There is room for a person to be on their way somewhere while the rest of the scene continues around them.
“Christmas in New York” follows “Made My Night,” her collaboration with LE SSERAFIM, and comes in a period when many listeners have also heard her work through “Golden” from KPop Demon Hunters. The holiday single has a different starting point. Its first public object is an illustrated scene in which the singer can put some of the relationships behind the work into view before the recording arrives.
EJAE has already made the cover available to the people who want to look closely at it. The release date, November 13, gives the illustration a second occasion. It is possible to find the family and friends now using the details she has offered. The hints drawn from the song will have another life once the listener can hear the lines they were made to accompany.
For Tentler-Krylov, the scene needed to leave space for both discoveries. Someone looking down a snowy street might first notice a woman walking a dog and then move on to the next figure. The cover makes that passing glimpse worth a little more attention. It belongs to a picture in which an ordinary walk can carry a part of the singer’s own history.
