Your CD needs a fair chance to capture an audience. It'll be handicapped if it has a boring cover. Face it -- people buy covers, and if yours features four different typefaces and an out-of-focus shot of the band, well... Sample some of our covers.
Kathy + Eddie -- Our House. We worked here with a composite of several photos to create a dream-like effect, a digitally produced "painting" of a cabin in a snowstorm to match the title of this beautiful debut CD. The result is a nostalgic illustration that harkens back to the glory days of large LP album covers.
Monroe County -- A Certified Bluegrass Location. For this brand new West Virginia bluegrass group, we capitalized on the band's wonderfully imaginative name and worked with a beautiful autumn roadside picture for the cover. The idea of the edited road sign came from band member Joey Lester.
The 1937 Flood/I'd Rather Be Flooded. For this third CD of Huntington's good band, The 1937 Flood, we decided to take a little ride on the fact that it was being released in an election year. Therefore, the colors -- red, white and blue -- were a natural. And decided to create an campaign button for the front that would contain the album's title. This also gave the band a promotional opportunty -- produce stickers and real pins and buttons with the same design for use throughout the year. The cover features the button on the pocket of a denim shirt. The flip side has the came button shown on the lapel of a blue blazer. We opted, of course, to keep the band's signature Broadway typeface for the name.
Thomas Jones/Of the Heart. For this beautiful collection of inspirational piano performance by the legendary pianist on The Delta Queen, we started with an original drawing by the pianist's wife, Diane. We then selected demure colors from that artwork for using in the cover's titles. Working closely with Mr. Jones and his associate, we looked for typefaces that enhanced the simple, beautiful heart that Diane gave us. We knew we had it when we hit on the combination of script for the subheads and a bold, stately serif type for the main title. This is intended as the first of a series of inspirational albums and the layout allows for the possible of repeating signature elements in the designs for later CDs in the family.
The 1937 Flood Plays Up a Storm. For this second album of West Virginia's most eclectic string band, we wanted something strikingly different from our work on the group's debut album. Since that first CD was basically blue with bright white lettering, our first decision was to go this time with muted colors -- grays and browns. And since this first album featured a picture of the members of the band on the front, this time we went with an historic picture of the actual 1937 flood. We kept, of course, of the band's signature Broadway typeface for the name. Then, keep a light feeling in the display despite the colors and the picture, we selected the "happiest" font we could find. You can't get much happier than a font called "Space Toaster".
Friends, Fiddles & Favorites. To create this cover for the Joe Dobbs/Buddy Griffin twin fiddle album, we actually started with three different photographs: One of Joe taken during a jam session out of doors, one of Buddy taken during an indoor concert and a shot of a sun-filled latticework window. We then "cut out" the shots of Joe and Buddy and "pasted" them over the window to make it appear as if they were playing in that cozy setting. Then for finesse, we turned the whole graphic into what looked like a painting done with a dry brush. We were particularly happy with how the angles of the fiddle bows and the players' arms echo the cross-hatch in the windows.
The 1937 Flood/The Band, Not the Natural Disaster. For this project, we started by creating the provocative photo of the band. To assemble this collage, we took images from five different photos, all shot at different gigs by different photographers and under entirely different lighting conditions. After we were satisfied with the placement of the six figures, we chose a simple picture of a blue sky for the background. We then found a complimentary shade of blue to use in the top and bottom borders and a white that matched the clouds for the color of the typeface. The font we selected was the band's signature Broadway typeface that so nicely shows off the numbers in the band's unique name.
Fiddle and The Flood. This cover, for Joe Dobbs' new solo fiddle collection, illustrates that you don't need to create fancy collages to make an impact. A simple photograph can be very dramatic if it is set off by an appealing border and an eye-catching typeface. Here we picked up the rich reddish-brown of Joe's fiddle to echo in the color of the border and we duplicated the gray of his beard in the color of the type. We are especially fond of how the two typefaces compliment each other. We selected Ruach LET for Joe's name at the topic of the cover -- it gives a kind of an ironic oriental look -- then chose the quirky Mistral script for the ablum's title. Even though they are different faces, they appear is if they could have been written by the same person, giving the whole thing a nice informal feel.
Old Time Fiddle Tunes. This Joe Dobbs cover required an entirely different approach. We felt the key words in the title -- "Old Time" -- must set the tone for the illustration. We wanted the feel of an old-fashioned photograph or perhaps of old printed playbill for an upcoming performance. In addition, Joe had an old photograph he wanted to use on the cover, a picture published in the early 1980s in a magazine. We scanned this photo into the computer, enhanced it slightly to brighten the colors, then selected typefaces that continued the "old time" theme. We picked the chocolate brown of the border from a shade in Joe's shirt in the picture.
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