REM Cover Studio Blog

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (UPDATE)

2006-04-06T17:22:00.000-07:00

Just posted this as a comment but thought I'd better make it a new post.

Dual discs are done! All I need to do is add the links to the site. This should be today, might bget time to do it during lunch (in about 2 hours).

Plus ..... I've had so many requests for this so now there will also be 2-3-3-3 disc version up this weekend as well. Although 3 disc Inlays I dont think are as nice as the other 2, very hard to cram that much text on. And theres always that one track thats 3 times longer in length than the others which is really annoying.

Anyway!...Now you really get a choice of how to package this set.

Slovenia 1999 DVD [Reconstruction]

2006-04-04T03:10:00.000-07:00

Inspiration for a cover design can come from a number of places. Usually it has a lot to do with what resources are available.

With this audience recording of the 1999 Slovenia show I had very little to work with. The footage image quality wasn’t good enough to get a nice still I could use. Being an older show it's a lot harder to find audience photos. In this case the best thing to do is to create something from scratch. The key to making this sort of cover work is using strong design elements.

DeviantArt is an amazing community of extremely talented people that inspire and challenge each other.

The resource section there has been indispensable. Not only am I using DA resources on more work (See Storytellers, Warsaw and the new Springsteen set) but I find it is an inspiration for new covers. The Slovenia cover is a perfect example. Knowing I had no photo resources I was on the look out for a striking image or texture. I found a great image that I loved but I couldn’t get a response from the DA member on whether I could use it on my non-profit work. So Slovenia was put on the shelf, at least for a couple of weeks while I worked on the Springsteen “Love, Tears & Mystery” CD cover set. I browsed the DA resources section daily and last week a post just leapt out at me. It was a texture posted by asunderstock which was described as “A grunge texture I made using a ton of my brushes”. You can see the texture below, click on it to go to it's DA page.

Software: Adobe Photoshop CS2

The first thing I did was to add the text. I used one of my favourite typographic layout techniques of scaling the type to fixed widths. This produces a block text that's very easy to work with and is very strong as a design element. Luckily, REM is a short word, meaning it's always a larger size that the other type.

The typeface used is "Hit the Road" by Matthew Welch.

To get the layers to blend I turned the layers blend mode to overlay.

Multiplies or screens the colors, depending on the base color. Patterns or colors overlay the existing pixels while preserving the highlights and shadows of the base color. The base color is not replaced but is mixed with the blend color to reflect the lightness or darkness of the original color.
- Photoshop Manual

Basically, this blends the layer into the image behind it in a certain way. Below you can see the original type on a white background. Below that is the text on the final background with 'overlay' on. This gives a really good old scuffed type look, but not really good for the main titles of a DVD cover. I had to duplicate the text layer two more time to build up the type to an acceptable level which you can see in the third image. It's a lot darker but has kept the distressed look and because the distressed markings are based on the background layer the two blended together more naturally.

So here is the type over the original textured background. I have flipped the background because this created a better distribution of 'white' space for the rest of the design.

I then filled a layer above the texture with an earthy skin tone and set its layer mode to 'darken'. This means any colour darker than it will show through the layer. See below.

I worked with the design like this for a while but it was just missing something. In my daily browse of DA I always check out the work of texturemattic (amazing texture photographer). He had posted a retrospective of some of the older textures artists on DA. One image was by thespook, a simple distressed wall texture but exactly what I was looking for.

I changed my original background colour to 30% and then added the new layer also putting its layer mode to darken and I was extremely happy with the result. It gave the image a beautiful colour and gave it a bit more depth. If you compare it to the previous version you'll see how flat it looked.

At this point that was all I was going to do for the cover. The problem was apart from the titles it didn't really tie in with the band at all. It actually looked like a poster for some post apocalyptic horror film. To solve this I need to use an image related to the band. An archive shot wouldn't work. It would be very tough to work it into the design and colour. After looking at the design again there was only one thing that was going to lend itself to the design...silhouette. I went through the photo archive and found a photo of the band members standing in a full-length photo. Each band member was traced in Photoshop. The black suits made it easy to select and fill in black (although that wall pattern made it a longer process than it needed to be) and then using a layer mask I added or subtracted the other parts. I had to scale Michael down a little to match the others in the band.

I then added the silhouette to the design using the same process at the text.

The overlay mode worked beautifully making the silhouettes look like they had been hatched into the original texture, and the imperfections just add to the look. I love the complete drop out of colour in Mike Mills head.

So that was the cover done. Time to start on the back of the DVD. This time I used the texture in its original orientation because it suited the required layout of elements. As there was going to be smaller elements and more of them on the back I didn't want as much of the dirty texture. Using a 'colour dodge' layer blend mode I duplicated the background several times to reduce the amount of 'noise'.

I wanted to 'lift' the tracklisting off the cover somehow. My first experiments were with pieces of scrap paper and notepads, but as my girlfriend pointed out it really wasn't matching the feel of the design. The cover was industrial grunge and a notepad just didn't fit. In the end I had to agree with her. Hate it when she's right!

So if not paper then the next logical choice was metal! I sourced Stock Xchange for all manner of metallic signs looking for a suitable one. I tried a number of completely eroded factory signs and a number of street signs but none felt right. Then I found this small dirty machine plate (photo taken by Jeremy Bank). I did a standard 'clone tool' job to remove the text from the original and then had to do some copying and blending to get it to the right size.

Next came placement on the back cover Since most of the other elements were going to be standard horizontal text I rotated the plate just so the design wasn't perfectly aligned and linear.

I then needed to make the plate look more like it was part of the scene rather than just sitting on top of it. First was a dropshadow to lift it off the page a little. I always change the opacity setting of the shadow to about 40%, the Photoshop default is always to harsh and drop shadows need to be subtle.

I wanted to add mildew or slime down behind the metal plate. I knew this would give the impression it was more anchored to the background rather than just sitting on top. I knew the exact effect I wanted and after unsuccessfully looking on Stock Xchange I decide just to make it myself.

I selected a rectangle in Photoshop and filled with the extremely useful 'render cloud' filter. Next I applied a 'wind' filter to get the jaggered line effect. I then had to skew the image so it followed the angle of the image but still have the streaks going straight down.

I also needed a dark area to put behind the DVD info box. Originally I just had a black square at 50% opacity so it was just darker brown but it was a little too rigid so with a splatter brush I painted some extra areas bleeding out into the page.

For both of these I applied the 'overlay' layer mode to blend them in with the background. This worked beautifully for both, giving the exact look I was after (see close up below).

The last thing I did to work the plate into the image was to overlay some of the background texture over the top. I used the 'selection' tool to select the black portions of the background image and paste them on a new layer above the plate and used a layer effect to soften it off a bit.

For the tracklisting I wanted a handwritten typeface. After testing a few I settled on Notepad. Most of the other typefaces I tried looked a bit to...... 'friendly' is the only way I can describe it. I like the way the black texture crosses over and covers up parts of the text. It's still ledgeable but isn't just straight forward.

I had to lighten up the texture where the credit text went because it was a bit hard to read. The DVD info box is a template layout that I use on most of my DVD covers because it's a nice concise way to present the technical information. The screenshots I needed to desaturated a little to tone them back because they were a bit too bright and colourful for the other colours used on the cover.

You can see and Download the final 200dpi version at sibko.deviantart.com or www.remcoverstudio.com.

You can download the DVD from Murmurs BitTorrent tracker. This is a P2P service that trades in non-commercial REM material.

Hope this entry has been informative and help some people get ideas. Thanks to all the people who's resources I have used.

Insight

2006-04-03T21:53:00.000-07:00

I found this the other day, and for the life of me I can't remember where, but I really must compliment the insights of the author.

UPDATE - Actually I found the originating website

DnD Inlays Are Back Up

2006-03-29T03:22:00.000-08:00

I did fix them in a mad panic so I really hope I caught everything.

Inlay Problems

2006-03-29T02:42:00.000-08:00

It was reported in a message on the blog that there is an error on the inlay spines and so they have been taken down...if you have already downloaded them please delete them. I don't want dodgy versions doing the rounds for the rest of eternity.

Fixed versions will be up soon.

Single Disc Edition Artwork is Up

2006-03-28T21:14:00.000-08:00

Single Disc Coverart

It's now up on my site. Let me know if there are any issues, errors or omissions.

Enjoy!!

Printing Springsteen Covers (important)

2006-03-28T16:21:00.000-08:00

Okay, here's some information on how to print the covers correctly.

COVER - CD covers are 120mm x 120mm with 5mm of bleed around the image making the physical size of the image 130mm x 130mm at a resolution of 200dpi. For full cover dimensions see diagram below.

INLAY - The inlay is 150mm x 117mm with 5mm of bleed around the image making the physical size of the image 160mm x 127mm at a resolution of 200dpi. For full inlay dimensions see diagram below.

With all my covers I include crop marks and bleed. This allows people to trim the artwork after it's been printed to it's exact size and not have any annoying white edges if the cut isn't exact.

The one drawback of this is that some software that takes CD artwork images and automatically scales them to the right size can have trouble with this. Scaling the extra bleed area and crop marks and including them in the print effectively ruins the design. The same goes for some CD labelling software. I'm considering putting cropped versions up on my site as well. Any feedback on the way people print covers would be appreciated.

CROP MARKS - Lines near the margins of artwork or photos indicating where to cut, perforate, or fold.

BLEED - Extra areas of image or colour around/outside and image area to prevent white paper showing if the image is not cut out perfectly.

Most of this information is pulled from my PRINT GUIDE check it out for more information as well as software with built in settings for printing these covers to the exact size.

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts) Pt.6

2006-03-27T15:20:00.000-08:00

Love, Tears & Mystery - Volume 1 - 11 - Single Editions

As you can see from the above image the single disc edition covers are basically complete. We are in the final stages of just proofing and then they will be up on the site.

Dual disc editions will take a couple more days.

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts) Pt.5

2006-03-26T19:19:00.000-08:00

Love, Tears & Mystery - Volume 1

Volume 1 is complete and here's the preview featuring the cover, inlay and label.

The label image that will be downloadable won't have the circles or hole markings. It will be a flat image similar to the cover that only requires you to print it on a sticker or cd.

Progress - All covers and labels are complete. The slow part is the inlays and all the text formatting that they entails. I have finished four of them and will get a few more done tonight.

I still need to start on the booklet for dual disc editions.

Wanted - Melbourne Springsteen DVD

2006-03-26T17:07:00.000-08:00

While I have a number of Springsteen fans visiting I should take the opportunity to ask if anyone has the DVD bootleg of 20/03/03 Telstra Dome, Melbourne, Australia show.

It was the only time I got to see Bruce live. I have the audio bootleg and have only just recently discovered there is a DVD version. If anyone can point me in the right direction I'd be most grateful.

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts) Pt.4

2006-03-26T14:37:00.000-08:00

The covers are coming along. I have finalised all 11 covers for the single disc editions and the 5 dual disc covers. Obviously due to the uneven number of discs both sets will use the same volume 11 cover. Below are the covers in order for the final sets.

SINGLE DISC EDITIONS (click to see enlarged versions)

DUAL DISC EDITIONS (click to see enlarged versions)

The covers are very dark and grungy so you will probably need good printers and quality paper for them to look their best.

There is a Springsteen section on my site now and all covers will go there when they are completed.

Single disc editions have track date and location details on the inlays while dual disc editions will have a booklet with the details in there.

As with all my covers they are done at 200DPI quality with a large amount of bleed and crop marks so they are easy to cut out at the correct size. There is a Print Guide on my site with some notes and software for printing my covers.

Ill be posting the single editions first. They should be finished in 2 days or so.

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts) Pt.3

2006-03-24T16:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, I've done rough versions of all 11 covers. Some are basically complete and others need a bit more work. The last 3 were done using lower res screen caps from the Devils and Dust Promo DVD which is why they are a little different to the others. I need to do more work matching the colours.

The order will change as well. Ever second one will be the cover for the dual case versions so obiously I will use the best images on them. Cover one will be made into a dual cover for vol 1&2, cover three with be vol 3&4 etc.

CLICK TO SEE ENLARGED IMAGE

I will try and finalise covers soon and get started on the inlays and labels in the next day or two. Thanks to everyone for the feedback...keep it coming!

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts) Pt.2

2006-03-24T13:46:00.000-08:00

Okay, the swirls are still there but I've toned them back a bit. I do think they were not working as well on the original preview of vol 2 as well as the inlay.

Remember it's still just layout ideas for now so some things may change.

Here's the design for the dual cases that I will do for vol 1&2, 3&4, 5&6, 7&8 and 9&10. Vol 11 will just be the standard single cd cover from the other set. There was a comment that some people don't like the 0 in the volume names. I'm not fussed about dropping it. As a designer I do like it. It makes the numbers look more 'meaty' and makes them the same width as the double digit ones so if anyone wants to comment I'd be happy to go with public opinion.

Here is my current design for the dual case inlay with the double track listing. (It is not easy to fit all that info on a small space).

I'll probably do the cover as a gatefold book for the dual case editions with a full list of tour dates on it so the track dates can be referenced to a performance.

Feel free to leave any comments or suggestion.

Devils and Dust - Bruce Springsteen (concepts)

2006-03-22T20:39:00.000-08:00

More Australian Covers - Sydney (night 2) & Byron Bay

2005-10-22T19:10:00.000-07:00

As recording goes the Australian Leg was fairly successful. There where 8 shows in Australia and it seems that only one (perth) wasn't recorded.

THe recording for the second Sydney show was pretty average, which is a pity because it is one of my favourite designs from the Australian tour. It does break the theme a little by not having a cityscape instead having a close up or one of the city icons, the Sydney Opera House. This didn't really concern me much, because this was the second Sydney show I'd already done a Sydney cover with an amazing skyline shot and I didn't think i could find another image as good so I decided to go for something alittle different.

Zaragoza & Glasgow Covers

2005-09-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Now with the tour over I'm slowly getting a chance to catch up on Covers that I either missed or are only just surfacing on the trade scene. Here are the latest two covers in the European series.

The first one is for Zaragoza, Spain. I've been trying for ages to do more covers with Peter on the front. He's featured on a few that have had group shots, but the only cover that 'features' Peter on the cover that comes to mind is Helsinki (and that pic was taken by a pro). The reason for this I think is that the guy never stands still, every fan photo I get is a blur of motion or from a really bad angle.

As you can see from the Zaragoza cover the only time he stops moving is when he’s talking to the band inbetween songs, but I think it’s still a nicely composed shot even if it is of his back, but at least he’s wearing a funky couloured shirt. You can tell I liked it because it’s featured on the back cover as well. No matter what I did I couldn’t find a good public domain image of Zaragoza, I’m having the same trouble with the Brisbane, Australia cover at the moment.

Here is the Glasgow cover. This one was pretty straight forward. The front photo was one of many fantastic shots I received from David Thake. That guy knows how to get some great concert shots. I should mention David also took the photo on the Zaragoza cover. Label shot was by Any Harlander, someone else who has been invaluable with supplying photos. Back photo is of the Glasgow Science Centre by Craig Young.

Yonge St. DVD Revisited

2005-09-07T16:45:00.000-07:00

17 May 2001 - Yonge and Dundas Streets, Toronto, Canada

REM performed a free show on the streets of Toronto, Canada to promote the album 'Reveal' which was released in North America 2 days prior to this show. The concert on the corners of Yonge and Dundas Street was film and broadcast in Canada by the adult music channel 'Much More Music'.

As with a number of DVDs, I design the menu interface for the DVD as well as the cover art. With Yonge St. I started with concepts for the interface and then that idea was carried over to the cover art.

One of the main features of the show was the torrential rain that hit just after the show started. Michael even broke into an impromptu rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival's 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain?' It was this downpour that lead to to concept of blue vertical lines as the background.

The background element was created in Macromedia Flash using semi-transparent blue rectangles horizontally scaling while moving across the screen. As the boxes overlap the various levels of transparency combine to make difference shades of blue. Once the movieclip was the right length and seemlessly loopable it was output to an avi video.

The avi was then placed in Adobe After Effects. It was in this program that the title text was created. Using the 'corner pin' effect to do a slight 3D rocking motion, a layer effect was then applied to get the text layer and the background layer to interact with each other.

This effect meant that when parts of the backgound became the same shade of blue as the text it would essentially block parts of the text. This gave the design a multi-layered appearance as if the text was moving through the blue banding.

Originally this was where I was intending to leave it but I thought that it was still missing something. In the end I decided to edit up 3 short clips from the show, making sure to include all three members (I always try to get all of them in). I overlayed this footage over the entire menu. Basically, the final loop consisted of 3 segments joined together.

The music used in the menu was an instumental version of 'All the Way to Reno', the second single from 'Reveal'. Whenever I use audio I try to make the loop seamless but this is near impossible on DVD plays because there's always a pause while it looks.

The other issue with DVD menus is that when you output the file to VOB (the dvd format) the menus always seem to change colour. The menu was meant to be a brighter more vibrant blue (see cover image below) but once it was output it because a murky grey blue which I was a little disappointed with.

I liked the background so much from the video it was an obvious choice for the cover as well. I scrubbed through the background video and took some grabs of some random compsitions.

As with most of these broadcast shows the only resource I had to work with was the DVD footage itself. So once again I had to deal with enlarging images and covering up the loss in quality this presents. I'd taken a number of screen grabs from the footage and after deciding on the profile shot of Michael for the cover I then masked out the background and used a layer effect to blend it into the background. I scaled the image so Michael would take up most of the front cover and the and microphone would wrap around to the back cover. This ties the two together and helps give an overall unified design. The mic also acted as a natural break on the back, nicely sectioning off areas for a blurb and disc information.

One element I really liked was the REM text repeated across the screen. I think this turned out wonderfully and the colours look great. I'm not one to use much yellow in design but I think it suited this design beautifully.

Thank You REM

2005-09-04T19:43:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of working on a tribute site for REM's 25th Anniversary. You can check it out at www.thankyourem.com. The site was the concept of Ethan from www.murmurs.com and programmed by Mihkel and designed by me. The site has proved very popular and as I mentioned previously even got a mention on the official REM web page.

I was thrilled when in a recent post on the band official site Michael Stipe posted a message about 'Thank you REM'. You can see this below and check out the original post here. Michael even posted a photo as a contribution to the project. I've since heard from another source that people at Warner’s loved the site too.

Hey hello were back on tour and rested from the time off. I wanted first to say THANK YOU! to all the THANKYOUREM.com people, everyone who worked on it[it's awesome]and then all the posts and photos that you all sent were really great and it made us all really happy—so thanks!----couldn't have done it without you...

So this first pic is in the spirit of thankyourem.com , enjoy your summer and I will too.

--michael (05.25.05)

The reason I started doing bootleg cover design is because I wanted to combine two passions, REM and design. To get to the point where I know the guys have seen my work and have given feedback is very gratifying both as a designer and a fan of REM.

Storytellers DVD

2005-09-04T16:57:00.000-07:00

It’s been a number of weeks since I designed a new cover (even longer since I've done a blog entry). Between family, work and other projects there's just not enough hours in the day.

Most of the work I have been doing recently has been text based, like updating the Murmurs BitTorrent Tracker FAQ and Rules, so on Saturday I decided it was time to get creative and design a new cover.

The Storytellers DVD was posted recently on the Murmurs tracker and I thought it would be a good cover to do. I wanted to do a classic leather tattered book look for it. A bit of an obvious concept I know but great fun to do in Photoshop.

I have to admit the original inspiration for this cover came when I bought Bruce Springsteen’s 'Devils & Dust' album a few weeks ago. I've always loved the distressed look in design and the Springsteen artwork used this beautifully and the paper stock they used was a perfect compliment to the design.

As I’ve mentioned a number of time in the past one problem with doing a design for a live show is finding good photos to use. This problem is somewhat alleviated by doing a DVD cover because you can get screengrabs and have tremendous choice over composition just by grabbing the right frame. But this also comes with it’s own problems.

DVD (NTSC) resolution is 720x480 at 72 DPI so when you put this on a 2228x1520 DVD cover at 200dpi the grabs aren't that big which means you have to scale them up resulting in image degradation and pixelation. The way around this is to apply a slight blur or other effect to the image.

With the Storyteller cover I started with an image of an old yellow painted wall with the paint chipping and marks all over it and generally in a bad condition.

I then went through the screengrabs I'd made to find a good shot of Michael talking. The lighting and set backdrop for Storytellers really suited this application of design.

I scaled the image to 200% and applied an Overlay blend mode to get the image to take on the qualities of the background image.

I then applied a layer mask to the image of Michael and used an amazing brushset by Aleksandra over at www.prettybrush.cjb.net to paint the cracks into the alpha channel showing through to the wall layer below.

After a bit of trouble trying to decide on a typeface I did the layout for the back. Originally the back layout was all geometrical, but it just wasn’t sitting right and lacked any real interest. This lead to the photos getting a thinner border (thanks Fiona) and getting rotated. I also staggered the tracklisting and changed the point size of the track numbers.

All that was left to do was the credits and disc technical information. For the first time I used the grid layout for the disc info which really simplifies the layout process.

This design took quite a while from start to finish, but I must say I was very happy with the end result. My partner has just bought a new printer and I cant wait to try it out on this design on some nice photo paper I just hope she doesn't mind me using all her ink.

Hope people like it. Feel free to leave comments and feedback below.

You can download the full cover and label here.

REM - A Personal History - Part 1

2005-04-15T03:26:00.000-07:00

In Australia in the late eighties there was a music clips show on late Tuesday nights on the ABC (the government funded television station). Although it had the rather unimaginative title of ‘Rock Arena’ it was different to all the pop shows aimed at the ‘single’ buying teen market. It was on at 11 o’clock at night and it's focus was the album buying adult market featuring artists that were basically unheard of on Australian broadcast media. As a teenager who had just started working on a very conservative AM radio station 'Rock Arena' opened me up to such artists as Stan Ridgeway and Wall of Voodoo, Talking Heads and on an episode in 1987 a band from Athens Georgia called R.E.M.

They played some black and white documentary with Michael Stipe standing at a pedestal periodically flailing his arms around as if hit by an unseen force. It was different from anything I’d seen before. The music was different to the pop that was flooding the market at the time. I have no idea what the doco was and I haven’t seen it since. They also played the clips for 'The One I Love', 'End of the World' and a couple more I can’t recall all these years later.

I was given a box of about 400 promotional seven inch vinyl singles from various artists that the radio station didn't want, either bands that weren’t the right format or stuff that didn’t sell so nobody wanted to hear it on the radio. It was beneficial for me at the time that R.E.M. didn’t have a commercial success in Australia because I scored about five singles that now have a prize place in my record collection. I think there was ‘End of the World’, ‘The One I Love’, ‘Superman’, 'Fall On Me’ and ‘So. Central Rain’.

1989 was, of course, pre-internet and keeping up with what a band was doing was with Music press and magazines (how did we get by?). The next time I heard of REM was just after ‘Green’ was released when they charted quite well in Australia with ‘Orange Crush’ it even ending up on one of those yearly compilation albums.

By 1991 I had been working as a DJ in nightclubs for a number of years when ‘Losing my Religion’ became the mega hit it was around the world. I was surprised that I could go to work and play an R.E.M. song and have a packed dance floor and 400 people singing along. This hit was followed up by the infamous ‘Shiny Happy People’ which again was popular at the club. This period of REM single chart hits coincided with the most fun I had working at clubs and is a lasting fond memory.

REM's 25th Anniversary

2005-04-11T05:58:00.000-07:00

April 5th is a momentous day on the REM music calendar, this year especially. It marks REM's 25th Anniversary. It was on that date in 1980 that the 4 members first took the stage together at a birthday party in Athens Georgia at the old church they lived in. Ethan from Murmurs came up with the idea of doing a website for the occasion that would act like a kind of guestbook where people could leave a message for the band. I designed the site in Photoshop based on a simple outline from Ethan, and Ethan with help from Mihkel in Estonia put the site together. You can check it out at www.thankyourem.com. The site has proved very popular and is even getting a mention on the official REM web page.

While designing the site it went through a few incarnations until I got a look I liked. I wanted to come up with some iconic design that could be used to promote the site and perhaps be used on merchandise. One of the first elements I came up with (that I liked so much I used on pretty much every concept) was a silhouette of the band. I didn't want to use a photo because a photo can be dated too easily and as the site was celebrating the bands 25 year history I thought a silhouette would be more timeless.

Originally the design consisted of only the current three members of the band in the red but every time I looked at it I got a glimmer of guilt for leaving Bill Berry out. He was a huge influence of the band for 17 years and since the site was a tribute to the bands entire history I decided to add him. To give the sense that he was part of the band but apart I added Bill in a different colour (mustard) behind the other 3 members. This decision would make the typographical design that I had to do next a lot easier. I wanted to use an elongated typeface and decided on one I love called Placard. I needed 3 colours to separate the 3 word in the title because I wasn't using spaces. The 2 colours I had used for the silhouette and grey worked very well.

I came up with some body copy just as filler for the design, I was quite happy to see that Ethan kept almost all of it for the final design:

It has been a long and interesting road for REM, the band that started in a church in Athens, GA on April 5, 1980. After forging a fan base by non-stop touring and never compromising on their creative goal, REM worked their way to the top of the music world. REM's music speaks to countless people around the world. On this their 25th anniversary, it's time for their fans to give back to them. Leave your images and messages here as a way to say, "Thank you REM."

I recently designed all the new merchandise for Murmurs and thought it would be fantastic to add a range of limited edition products for the anniversary. You can check out the range of new products here http://www.cafepress.com/murmurs/563227. I must say the stuff is selling really well. Thanks to all those people who are buying them. The proceeds from sales go to support Murmurs and more projects such as this.

Another thing I wanted to do for the site was provide some wallpapers people could download so they could have something commemorative on there desktops. I had got a decent number of photos from a variety of European show taken by Robert Chapman. The photos had a fantastic blurred, almost multiple expose on them, and as I found out when I tried to take photos at an REM show it was due to the camera requiring a long expose and therefore the lighting giving a small time-lapse effect. Anyway, a lot were too blurry to use but some where pure art and I wanted to share them on a wider scale so this was perfect.

Time to Update my Blog!

2005-04-11T05:51:00.000-07:00

It has been a long time between entries but I think it's time to try and update the blog again regularly. The website is doing very well and ever since switching over to it's own URL (www.remcoverstudio.com) the work has seemed endless, stealing whatever little time I had before to write here.

Music@Murmurs

2005-04-01T22:22:00.000-08:00

Another small design projects I did for Murmurs was design a logo for the new Music@Murmurs section. Music@Murmurs is an expansion of the murmurs site that exends to all music news, not just REM. Ethan did a small advertising banner saying it was coming soon and wondered if I could come up with a better design.

First thing I tackled was the logo type. The design formed almost straight away. It was simple and to the point and easy mainly driven by the fact 'Music' and 'Murmurs' where similar structure giving a good symmetrical look either side of the ampersand. I think the logo turned out well. We even applied it to T-Shirts and mugs and have sold a few.

For the T-Shirts I added a slogan which is actually a quote from Michael Stipe, “Let us sort the music from the sound”. I thought this quote was perfect because it embodied what the site was aiming to achieve, ie. sorting through a broad spectrum of music and giving feedback and opinions. Also, as it was a quote from JMS, it linked back to murmurs from which the site evolved.

Covers Preview - European Leg

2005-01-21T04:05:00.000-08:00

Finally we are seeing some bootlegs appearing from the European leg with much thanks to Matthijs. I thought I'd better come up with a new cover design. (I've had a whole month off between the US and European legs to design something and I leave it to the last minute :P)

Ok here it is:

As there are a lots of countries I'm going to keep the layout but use colours from the host country flag. The whole concept is based around geography and location.

The cover will feature fantastic photos (thanks to RemFriends) from the European leg and also a map of Europe showing the location of the gig.

The back will feature a shot from the host town or country. As they're playing a lot of famous cities with famous skylines and architecture I thought I'd use it where possible to give a sense of that culture. I can't rule out a twist or two!

The final version of Slovenia should be up this weekend and I'm just waiting on tracklistings for the two other shows (Milan and Zagreb).

The inspiration for these shows came from the Cologne cover I did. I liked it so much I wanted to do more.

REM Cover Studio goes LIVE!!!

2005-01-16T23:29:00.000-08:00

ITS ALIVE!!!! Well The REM Cover Studio Beta site went live on Friday the 14th January. It's currently being hosted on my girlfriend's webspace (bless her) until I can find a more permanent home for it. I only have 50meg of space which must be just about up so I'll have to start looking fast.

The response has been fantastic. I've only placed links to it here, murmurs and the REM Web Ring and I've had 250 hits already from all corners of the world.

The site still needs a couple of sections finished, as well as a couple of planned additions, but all in all the first weekend has gone well. I'm already planning v2 of the site which, if I can learn PHP from scratch, the whole site will be database driven.

Demo and Outtake Covers

2005-01-10T19:30:00.000-08:00

I downloaded the Green Updated Demos off EasyTree and thought it would be good to do a cover for them. I'd always had a simple concept I wanted to try for the demos and outtake discs and since a few of them had been recently posted I thought it was the opportune time.

I wanted to get away from using picture of the band all together on these ones. Cover designs are restricted by being able to find usable hi res images that suit the composition you're trying to create, you are, after all, a slave to your resources. So I thought I'd dictate the imagery on these ones. I didn't know how that would be accepted but the REM trading community that downloads my covers but I was interested to find out.

I'd always had the idea of doing free standing objects on a white plane or background. The initial idea I had was for the Green Outtakes. First of all I had to go with the obvious colour choice because it would just look dumb in anything else. In a way this helped a great deal with how I was to used colour on the whole series.

Green Demos Upgraded

For the Green cover I used some fantastic stock images of a waste bin, signifying versions that were binned and not used on the final. I designed the cover with the word 'outtakes' in mind. I was surprised when I re-read the notes and it was 'demos' which didn't quite suite the concept as well but I decide to continue with the design anyway.

I was really happy with the final result, the minimal use of imagery, typography and colour make the design very strong and simplistic and for those reason it's one of my favorites so far. I thought it was going to be a hard one to beat.

Lifes Rich Pageant Demos & More

For most of REM commercial albums I can think of an object I could probably use on a demo cover of this style, but for a while Lifes Rich Pageant puzzled me. I looked through some stock images of childrens toys and found some photos of old toy trains that jumped out at me. There is no real connection but they just seemed to go together.

I used a colour picker to select a shade of deep red of the toy on the cover to use as the colour for the text. As with the Green Demos cover this one turned out better than I expected although this one did receive some mixed reactions.

With this release there was a file of information with details on each track. To put all this information on the inlay would completely crowd the space and detract from the white open look I was trying to achieve. I thought what it needed was a gatefold booklet for the people who wanted the extra information. With a booklet I would have enough room for all the details without spoiling the look.

Outtakes of Time

This one I have mixed feelings about. I used green and red for the previous two cover so the obvious colour choice for this one was blue. I wanted to put a variety of time recording devices on here not only a clock, things like hourglasses or sundials.

For the cover I went through a large number of clock images until I found one I think worked. I think I subconsciously chose it because it reminds me of a clock we had in the room at my old high school.

For the inlay I didn't want another clock so I went with the only picture of an hourglass I could find. (Well I found a few but this was the only one that wasn't cropped and could be used on a white background.) Problem is I don't think it really works. It looks like its lifting off the page. The first two covers are very strong and I love them but this one I can't look at with the same affection. I'm doing another cover for another 'Out of Time' demo disc with a slightly different tracklist and I'll be using two different images for that that I hope will turn out better.

Avalon Cover

2005-01-10T19:29:00.000-08:00

October 29th, 2003 - Avalon Hollywood Theatre - Hollywood, California

This is another cover from the backlog.

After doing the ATS tour covers I wanted to try a few more abstract designs. I didn't just want to put a stock standard picture of the band on the cover. I wanted to use more unusual but colourful and dynamic poses. So instead of going for full body shots I went for closer cropped images. I found some fantastic photos taken by Lindzi3, who has posted some amazing shots of Murmurs.com.

On the cover I went for a shot of Peter Buck that has the most vibrant colours and quality to it, it also has a slight natural motion blur. The inlay features a shot of Michael Stipe, also slightly out of focus due to motion bluring. I like this photo not only cause of the intensity of colour but it gets away from the standard concert shots by having Stipe with his hand across his face.

The typography took ages to layout. I kept moving it around and was never really happy with the composition. I think I finally decided on going for a 4 quarter grid layout and added the lines to add more geometrical interest.

Once again I used the justified scaled text to created block text elements that are much easier to work with. (I'm going to stop using this technique for a while as I don't want it to become a trademark of my designs and although I like it I think I'm overusing it.)

Air Canada Cover

2005-01-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

September 30th, 2003 - Air Canada Centre - Toronto, Canada

OK, this one was a request a while ago and now that the REM Around the Sun Tour has gone into a months hiatus in between the North American and European legs it's given me a chance to catch up on some of the other things on my 'to do' list.

I remember this concert. I was sitting at work listening to the REM HQ's live webcast of the show (not a bad way to spend a work day).

Initially I started looking for some shots of the venue just on the web and on the centre's official homepage to see what was around. I was also looking to see if there was any stand out architecture on the building that might make an interesting element for the cover. I almost went for a heavily cropped photo of the odd sculpture that sits in front of the building. I ending up finding the very cool shot that's on the back which was so perfect for the inlay. The venue photo set the colour and tones for the design, very cool autumn colours.

I scrounged around for some shots of the show, finally finding a couple of good concert shots from the night to use on the cover and inlay.

For the typography I once again used a technique that is prominent on quite a few of my covers, scaling each line of type so they're all justified to the same width creating a beautiful symmetrical block of text. Under this block of text on the inlay I had a square of blank space that I wanted to fill with some sort of iconic image. The venue country providing the inspiration by having one of the most recognizable international icons in the world.

At first I was worried about how I was going to do the track listing. It always works out better if the track number on each disc is about even. In this case it was sixteen tracks on CD1 and only eight on CD2 which is unusual for a bootleg release. The layout of the tracks was determined by the fact I could break the list into 3 columns of eight which ended up looking very nice after my initial concerns about how I was going to pull it off.

Uncasville Cover

2004-12-11T18:21:00.000-08:00

November 5, 2004 - Mohegan Sun Arena - Uncasville, CT

This was the second cover I designed on the same night I did the Washington DC one. I like this one for the same reasons as the DC show. It uses more bright, intense colors than some of the previous covers. I've been waiting for the right opportunity to use a few panoramic stage shots and this seemed like the perfect cover for it.

No editing of the photos was required for both the cover and the inlay. The photos basically fell into place perfectly. The label however required a small tweak. The main problem with a CD label is that it has a ruddy great hole in the middle which in almost all cases has some important part of the image land on it no matter how you place the photo. So for the label a little more photoshop work was required to move Petter Buck across so he was on the image area. The missing background was then just cloned in.

Here's some of the feedback it's been getting on the murmurs forum:

Those are beautiful!
-In The Corner

Sibko, that Mohegan one is AWESOME! Dig the blue!
-beyond

These are just amazing Sibko. AMAZING !!
I was at this show and your covers capture the show exactly.
-greenersg

Thanks to everyone for all the positive feedback, it's much appreciated.

Washington DC Cover

2004-12-11T01:29:00.000-08:00

1 November 2004 - DAR Constitution Hall - Washington, DC

I designed two new covers for Around the Sun shows last night. I haven't seen the Washington DC show around at all on any Bootleg sites but I found the bootleg details on a traders site.

While I'm getting plenty of great shots from people who are going to the shows and taking some fantastic photos there are a couple of problems I'm having with the current design series.

Problem Number 1 - Color
The trouble is the tour uses the same sets, and the same lighting, so after a while all the shows look similar. This is why I was very happy to get some more photos to use recently with some really cool colorful images in them.

Problem Number 2 - Group shots
The other problem is that band members are spread out across the stage and it seems getting photos (in focus) of them standing together has been difficult. Recently though, more have surfaced that I'm thrilled about.

Design Notes

I got these great shots of Mike Mills, Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey and Mike Mantione (of support group Five-Eight). The photo was taken from the 28th November 2004 show at Kiva Auditorium, Albuquerque, and Five-Eight weren't the support act at the DC show. Now, no offence to Mr Mantione but I did remove him from the cover with a little Photoshop magic.

I also copied a light that was in between Mike and Peter and added it to the right hand side next to Scott because it looked like it was a bit empty and I was trying to draw attention away from the missing musician.

The back cover features Mike Mills getting into it and Michael thinking he's Superman.

NOTES: REM Back Catalogue Re-Issue News

2004-12-07T14:52:00.000-08:00

The Australian Music Industry news site, Undercover, has posted info on the Australian release of the re-issued REM catalogue with details on each album.

http://www.undercover.com.au/news/2...041207_rem.html

Salt Lake City Cover

2004-12-05T21:31:00.000-08:00

This one was done last night in the little time I had between doing some Christmas shopping and going to see LIVE on the Awake tour.

I had the taper contact me and ask if I'd do up a cover for the show. Even though he's not distributing it yet it's good to know it's out there.

Once again I used a couple more of Joseph Price's fantastic photos from the Salt Lake City show. I actually managed to get all 3 members of the band on this one. It's extremely hard to find good images of them together because they stand so far away from each other on stage. Another reason Josephs' photos are so good is he's got a number of shots looking down stage with both Michael and Peter in frame.

The cover was an easy one to compose and I didn't have to flip the picture this time. Michael's head fitted neatly up to the text. Having a part of the photo breaking out of the photo area is something I've started doing on most of the covers recently. This tends to make the cover more dynamic and adds a bit more interest but it needs the right photos to make it work well.

The inlay was harder mainly due to the fact the CD tracklist break was a bit odd. There were 16 tracks on one disc and only 8 on the second.

With the label I was a bit sneaky and moved Peter Buck across a little so he fitted better onto the image area and didn't disappear down the cd hole.

Indianapolis Cover

2004-12-03T06:39:00.000-08:00

This one was done in about an hour, so it's a bit of a rush job. The trick with the ATS Tour covers (all covers actually) is to find images for both the front and back that have a 'family feel', meaning that the front and back cover look like they belong together.

I'm not sure where these 2 images came from (I believe off murmurs somewhere) but they work wonderfully together in there simplicity.

New York Cover

2004-12-03T02:20:00.000-08:00

This one took a while and the images chopped and changed quite a bit. I had some great images from the NYC show but the problem was they were press photos and I really want to stay away from copyrighted material if I can.

The front cover image is one I got from Endgame (a member of the murmurs forum). The image has been flipped so Stipe's head is in the right place and doesn't cover the text.

The back picture was edited a fair bit too. The shot of the Brooklyn Bridge was used early on, then changed and then changed back. I like to get away from standard band pictures where I can and use other inspiring photography. Famous landmarks in a venue town is always a good place to start. The problem is finding an interesting photo that is good quality and not someones happy snap.

Open for Business

2004-12-02T21:36:00.000-08:00

OK, I started this blog so that I can provide information about my REM Covers and the inspiration behind some of the designs as well as getting feedback from people.