CD cover: Andy

A musician named Andy requested something very specific for the cover of his album "Old Food, Old Drinks, and Andy": three vending machines side-by-side with "Cold Food", "Cold Drinks", and "Candy" on them, the "C"s having fallen off long ago to create the title. Oh, and the "Andy" machine had to be filled with copies of the cover that I would be designing. Yikes!

I found some pictures of vending machines and a rough wood backdrop...



...and used Photoshop to assemble them all together, angle the machines to be a group, add shadows, colorize things, clean the rust off of the old machines, and add the labels. Then I saved an image of the whole scene, made a bunch of copies of it, and stuck it in the "Andy" machine. The end result looks pretty cool.

CD cover: S-R.O.C.

This one was a collaboration. The client had a very specific request for a cartoon drawing of himself as a Boondocks character. Through a bit of luck, I found Jen Seng, a friend of my housemates, who happened to be an artist on The Boondocks. She drew his character exactly as described and I colorized him & placed him in this cave environment (again, as requested). Please note the 'claw marks' on the wall in the background.

CD cover: SK

SK asked for a new, fresh look at a hiphop cover, and liked this combination of rough grungy background and halftoned image.

CD cover: Dirty Sanchez

I found this crazy dude's picture for the cover of this British electronica group's debut single. Besides the title, all I added was the lettering on his headband.

CD cover: OBEY (second album)

Sticking with a robot theme for this alternative hiphop group.

CD cover: Lifeline Collective

This Christian rock band requested an image of souls burning in Hell while the hands of God reach down to save them. It was a Hell of a challenge but was fun layering together all the images, especially when the band requested "more flames". Woo!!

Fun fact: the tortured souls writhing in flame are actually silhouettes of people dancing at a rock concert.

CD cover: The Fabulous Brothers

The Fabulous Brothers came with nothing at all: no photos, no logo, no music samples, not even an album title. They just asked me to come up with an intriguing image that was slightly sinister. It was a lot of fun working with them.

CD covers: Lounging Palominos

Two covers for a country band.

CD cover: Earthrise

This one was pretty straightforward; the client asked me to use a NASA photo of the Earth rising over the Moon. I did, and he said it didn't look 'real' enough, so I tarted it up with stock imagery and Photoshop effects. The end result is over-the-top sci-fi looking, but I really kind of dig it. This is a good example of when client collaboration & input really improved the end product beyond what I delivered in the first place.

CD cover: OBEY

This one was for an alternative hiphop group called Obey the Altar Native. They had nothing for me to use and encouraged me to come up with a creative concept based around their album title and their love for designer toys and Japanese culture. I used several rows of robots swearing obedience to the "signal" from the speakers in front of them. The band dug it and I'm working on their second album now.