Måsstaden, album artwork, cover + booklet

**rickardwestman** · November 29th, 2011, 07:01 PM

Hey folkos!

Swedish seven-piece band Vildhjarta just released their debut album måsstaden and I had the benefit of doing the artwork for it.

Måsstaden is a concept album evolving, in a classical fable manner, around an isolated city. I won't go into details but you can unfold the story through the combined experience of the music, lyrics and artwork.

So, boyos and girlos, feel free to pay Vildhjarta a visit at,
www.vildhjarta.com

Have a nice day and I hope you like!

Cheers!

**rickardwestman** · November 29th, 2011, 07:20 PM

The top ones are for the digipak cover that spans over the size of three "pages". The rest, starting with shadow, are taken from inside the booklet, each representing a song and an event.
Of course a lot of symbolism an metaphores is told in the images.

Vildhjarta presented me with the story and the blueprints for the two main characters, other than that I was pretty much free to go bananas at everything surrounding it.
Måsstaden was one of the most inspiring and insane projects I have ever worked on, and the handful +2 guys in the band are a bunch of really nice guys with a lot of cool ideas.
At times, during the two months until deadline, I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it (as I did it part from my daytime job) but a lot of work and no sleep made for some great portfolio pieces and a lot of gained experience.
So it was a win. And I have to thank my wife for putting up with me during that time, she is the best!

Hopefully I'll be able to put some wips and stuff together and post it up on the blog at the end of the week.
That's all for now I guess. Take care!

**village idiot** · November 30th, 2011, 04:30 AM

These are absolutely faultless, beautiful things. Congrats on producing such stellar work

**Pixeltuner** · November 30th, 2011, 06:35 AM

Absolutely beautiful. I especially like the book with the crumbling tower, I would put that on my wall

I was expecting some pagan viking metal to go with this though, not some Meshuggah-ish deathcore

Sounds interesting enough though so I'll give the whole album a spin

**walnut** · November 30th, 2011, 08:43 AM

Best stuff i've seen in this section for a while ...

**lewiston** · November 30th, 2011, 08:46 AM

Wow. simply stunning work...

**rickardwestman** · November 30th, 2011, 09:07 AM

village idiot - Thanks a bunch! Had a blast making these

Pixeltuner - Thanks! Yeah, people seem to like that one and the half lit lady (benblåst). You should defenetly give the album a spin! I really like how they are making their own thing and think somewhat out of the box when it comes to both music and art. And they have a darkness to them that feels kind of fresh these days, which i really like. Comes with being swedish I guess...