483A (cd packaging...)

the idea here was to take an old cd package that needed help and better it. my first problem was hard to solve because the original packaging wasn't so — in need of help. it was also very sparse as far as content (no lyrics). Apocalyptica is a group of 4 cellists that totally rooool. This particular album, they play all Metallica songs. my first thought was... classical and metal merge to create fine art with aggression. i painted a piece trying to combine the two but in the end didn't accomplish my goal. then, i thought that maybe i would do a pop-up-style, folding-frenzy-guess-type album cover. one that worked every which way you flipped it, turned it, or opened it. and the theme would be a rose emerging from the concrete (the classical/metal concept again). well, it didn't work so well. so i switched gears and re-designed No Doubt's 2000 album, Return of Saturn.

apocalyptica cover (my original logo)


apocalyptica fold one (d.p.s.)


apocalyptica full (my original illustration)


apocalyptica inside full


apocalyptica (treatment for the rose-in-concrete idea)


so, scrap all that business... here's No Doubt's redesign. in 2000, the album design was, well, 2000... when really it's timeless.

Return of Saturn.

An album that received a lot of negative criticism because of their change of style: darker, less energetic, hyped-up, sold-out... well, they didn't know the half. gwen's life during these times played the largest role in this album... as the critics expected an energetic presence like tragic kingdom, at 30 years old, gwen was actually growing up. i re-designed their packaging to portray an old poetry book checked out at the library, a huge step beyond a written diary (which would have been critic-favored). on many levels this medium is powerful. mainly because the lyrics speak her heart very much like poetry and millions of girls across america and even internationally have related to her and take her words to heart, hence the metaphor of the multiple check outs in the library. the final outcome is an old poetry book (that i produced from scratch) with the cd acting as a library card. the table of contents list the songs on the album. and there is a spread dedicated to the lyrics of each song:







since gwen is from anaheim, i went to the anaheim public library to get a stamp from them and i grabbed a book with their library card holder and i scanned both of them. the dates i used to stamp this "library card" were actual milestones in their music career up to this point.






i sketched little old school drawings but with relevant 'gwen-isms.'