A tale of two covers
Well, the CCM reader's choice awards came in and
despite not being nominated for anything we took some surprising write-ins
including: #2 Favorite live performance, #1
Favorite song, #2 Write a book, #2 Most underrated, #2 Break into the
mainstream (that's ironic.. hint hint...) and
#1 Favorite album
cover. Favorite album cover was especially
ironic considering how much pain we went through to birth that one. We started
with a concept that Dave and I tossed around, which the label wasn't happy with.
We then went through a frustrating 50 + covers to get to the final design.
Here's my original test mockup next to the final cover:
And here, you can see some of the 50 other variations we went through, none of which made both label and artist happy. Most of them came from the label side. Creativity can be difficult on a deadline and with conflicting instructions: We wanted darker, Steve wanted shelf pop. Ben got caught in the lighter! darker! crossfire.
You can see them in bigger sizes and with more colors at: http://www.inpop.com/_comps/superchick/
Later after Ben and I hammered out the final cover, Rob came up with a fairly brilliant compromise to make the record pop more on the shelf: He wrapped it in white printed shrink wrap. A cover isn't just about design, it also has to pop out amidst all the other covers on the shelves and I thought Rob brought peace and harmony to our quest for the perfect cover. UPDATE: Ben tells me that the shrink wrap overlay was actually his brilliant idea and that in the end we actually went through 90 cover ideas. Sorry for the misinformation Ben! I know he thinks of it as one of his favorite covers and it's one of mine too. As I recall, what with management and the band and all the label opinions, the whole cover thing took forever and the final cover and booklet as it exists happened because I got Ben on the phone one afternoon and we spent all afternoon hashing it out, emailing ideas back and forth. Sometimes it's best just to get it done without the committee. UPDATED UPDATE: Rob insists it was his idea after all...
And here, you can see some of the 50 other variations we went through, none of which made both label and artist happy. Most of them came from the label side. Creativity can be difficult on a deadline and with conflicting instructions: We wanted darker, Steve wanted shelf pop. Ben got caught in the lighter! darker! crossfire.
You can see them in bigger sizes and with more colors at: http://www.inpop.com/_comps/superchick/
Later after Ben and I hammered out the final cover, Rob came up with a fairly brilliant compromise to make the record pop more on the shelf: He wrapped it in white printed shrink wrap. A cover isn't just about design, it also has to pop out amidst all the other covers on the shelves and I thought Rob brought peace and harmony to our quest for the perfect cover. UPDATE: Ben tells me that the shrink wrap overlay was actually his brilliant idea and that in the end we actually went through 90 cover ideas. Sorry for the misinformation Ben! I know he thinks of it as one of his favorite covers and it's one of mine too. As I recall, what with management and the band and all the label opinions, the whole cover thing took forever and the final cover and booklet as it exists happened because I got Ben on the phone one afternoon and we spent all afternoon hashing it out, emailing ideas back and forth. Sometimes it's best just to get it done without the committee. UPDATED UPDATE: Rob insists it was his idea after all...
Posted: Fri - February 17, 2006 at 12:11 AM
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Published On: Oct 03, 2009 06:37 PM
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Published On: Oct 03, 2009 06:37 PM