Metal Album Covers

[maddog4never]

Hey all,

long time troll, first time poster here

These are album covers I worked up for my metal band, Precipice.

If you'd like to check out some of the music that goes with the art, listen to some of our stuff on our myspace site:

http://www.myspace.com/precipiceny


This first one is for our first album, "Absolution-Introspection". I completed it last fall.


This one is for our second album, "Bastard Divinity", completed last month. The elements are more dense on this one to reflect the change in music production and sound on the album.


All comments/crits are welcome.

Remember to check out the music! (ie. shameless plug)

- Gabe

[Bai Fan]

Um, I cant read the band name. The covers seem really busy and overly cloned. I like the naked ladies, but that might be because I like naked ladies. You need to make sure that you have the rights to use those images if you are going to sell these.

[maddog4never]

For any of those who think the images too crowded, simply reference old Emperor's "Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk", Carcass' "Symphonie's of Sickness", or Slayer's "Reign in Blood". The dense packing of images is the feeling I get out of the music: basically a lot of shit going on at once (ie. the breakdown to "Anxiety of Eternity").

In reference to the illegibility of the logo, that's nothing new for metal bands. This one is actually pretty tame compared to some of the underground black metal band logos that are out there.

- Gabe

[possessed]

I am going to say it: way too crowded. The first one could be strong if you just use the giant statue in the middle and the praying hands to it's left and right. You don't need all the rest.

In the second one: The name divinity is messed up. It says divintty at the moment. There are interesting elements in this one as well but if you clutter up enough 'interesting elements' the whole thing just becomes a mess.

Also Bai fan mentioned copyrights, wouldn't you feel you've accomplished more if you use photo's for your collage you took for yourself?

[Serena-]

First one - I say knock out the two "buddas" on the side and the crosses especially since they're really heavy on the one side - that's distraction from the 'main event' - your band's name. If you did that I think it would no longer look crowded, it would pull to the middle instead of all around due to the heavy images that distract on the sides. Nothing should be more prevelent, or equally prevelent as the "main topic"

And yes many of the heavy metal bands have very distractive covers, but that isn't necessarily a good thing - it's just messy. I like Slayer, and some of Cradle of Fillths work... But let's face it, some of those covers are just "Let's shove as much crap on one page as we can" no point or purpose - accept maybe shock value. Which isn't really shocking anymore.

Second cover - again heavy on the sides with the text running up both ends. With the text being on both sides it's balanced, but that's just makes it equally distracting from the main topic at hand. I say if you drop that the rest will pull together fine.

Of course it's your work, and your band so whatever you feel makes it work go with it. That's just the suggestion I put forth for it. Amazing work either way, you can see the time and effort you put into this, and the product was very near perfect. Thank you for sharing.

[Doomgriever]

buddha has nothing to do with crosses.... -___-

[Serena-]

At first glance buddism has nothing to do with crosses. But the bottom line is they're both religion. No idea why I felt to point out the possible connection, but since I saw it I figured I'd throw it in. Plus they aren't even budda's, I'm not sure exactly what they are. Perhaps another religion that's similar.

[Elwell]

Photoshop 101

[cass83]

I love skulls, horns, esoteric symbols, and generally dark imagery but I do not like these at all. Way, way too busy and too random. The type is atrocious and you have copy/pasted so much that even the diverse images become mundane and boring due to mirroring, pedicitable symetry, repetition and flat out duplicating shit. I think it is also rather obvious you did not take these pictures because you have taken very famous relgious artworks and made a messy collage of them. Anyways the girl wearing the skull in the bottom one is cool and reminded me of the Baphomet which I like. I also liked the bone wings a bit too. I did a very quick paintover to show you what it might look like if you pick a center of interest. Peace.



Baphomet

[inspector Lee]

One thing I learned at art School a long time ago is: using printed "Professional" work to justify your design choices is silly, there are plenty of examples of printed artwork that is very poorly designed. So just because you can find some printed CD cover that has a "crowded" design somewhere else, doesn't mean it's good design.
I agree with all the crits so far. That logo/name is just un-readable. I had to look and see if you'd typed the name in your post before I knew the band's name.
I like that you are trying to create a consistent color feel to each, but the choice of type face seems random, and as someone else said, some of the images don't make sense.

[jfwalls]

Alright, being a connaisseur of metal, and singer/guitarist of several death metal bands, I can see what you're going for. However, I agree with all the critiques everyone has given you. Just because the typical metal cover has this type of imagery doesn't mean you have to do it. Unless of course you just want to be another typical metal band. Think iconic, not overwhelming.

You could use the image (the 2nd one) you have now as a background, and drop the contrast real low so it becomes more of a pattern or texture. Then punch up the contrast on the dog skull. I would also get a vector version of your logo. The hand drawn look of the current version is rather ugly. Your best bet would be to use this as an idea, and give to a pro to work from.

I also checked out your music. Not too bad. I can definately hear the Nailbomb influence. I liked the song Vagabond the most, but you need to bring up that bottom end on your recordings. There's no crunch! With a good recording you might have something decent.

[TheDirtSyndicate]

sorry dude....but "with a healthy amount of Sepultura." made me laugh...and then i kinda felt offended.
sepultura IMO is the best metal band to walk the face of the earth, and you guys dont sound even a little like them. i dont hear any sepultura influence...

aside from that, you're in the wrong forum for this sort of thing.
im a graphic designer, its what i do for a living, i get paid to do this shit, but i come to conceptart.org for my ILLUSTRATION critiques. not my graphic design crits. these guys (no offence to them) dont know enough about graphic design . but they did all give good critiques, heres why:
they know what looks good.
these dont look good. they're on the right track to looking good, but they aren't there yet.
my biggest crit is that they dont seem to reflect your music at all.
the first one looks like a meditation cd cover, and the second is PINK. i dont care if theres a skull on it, its fuckin pink dude.
i say go more black based.

heres a perfect example of what im talking about (even though its not the best design ever), its black based, not a bunch of layerd random crap that doesn't make sense, and the type is easy to read:


for design inspiration:
www.typo5.com
www.555design.org
www.makeshift.ca
www.youarebeautiful.co.uk
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[Doomgriever]

yay sepultura (: hehe yeah good crit complete2

[galspanic]

After looking at your album covers and other "good" album designs, the biggest difference I see is contrast. Your design has no value contrast. I put them into photoshop and grayscaled them and they become flat and boring. Another thing to consider is that you defend these designs with the whole "They fit the music" defense. That is a weak excuse because nothing in that music said symetry and silicone tits to me. Using naked women is okay, but they can't be those naked women. Also, you use an illegible font for the name of the band. I get that, it is a logo or a signifier more than anything. But, the right out of the toolbar fonts look really awful and manufactured. Nothing says bad metal like a manufactured and pre-fab album cover and there are exacly that.
So, my advice is to go back and rearrange your imagery, play with the fonts, make that logo more crisp (Not legible, but not looking like a highschool potheads history notebook sketch), bump the contrast and distinction between grounds, and look up the term chiaroscuro.