Thursday, August 21, 2008

Bitter Season Album Art



Creative block is something that plagues all creatives. It has the power to cause huge amounts of friction between the joy of creating, and the exhaustion of the process, that at times could even bring about tears. This project for the band Bitter Season was the most fun, and most frustration I've had for a freelance job so far. But what I took away from it in the end, taught me a priceless lesson in dealing with my own creative blocks.

When I was contacted by the band to design their CD packaging, they told me about an image they were using for their background on their bands MySpace page. After checking it out and hearing them talk about their music, I had the challenge of creating something that combined the look and emotion of this image they had, but also wanted my own feel and inspiration to it. The challenge of every designer; merging the concept of the client with the art and style of the artist.


I made a mistake on this job, as I usually send 2 - 3 concepts of an album cover in the beginning, I was sure I could hit it down with one. I was that confident in my idea. I wanted something with a feel of bitterness and desolation, with minimal color and use lots of white space to convey this since of being alone. I created this cover proof and sent it to the band, 100% confident that it was a winner. After the proof was emailed, I started to compile a mental note book for the other elements, how they would come together, the insert, CD face, and tray card. I had it all planed out and waited to hear back from the band. When I received their email, I was told that they wanted something darker, and closer to the image they had mentioned before. My first reaction, as most designers and artist who are passionate about what they make, was not a happy one. Now, not only did I have to abandon my artwork and start anew, but my whole plan for the album had to be thrown out also, and left me with a HUGE case of creative block. (which I admit was self inflected ) I created their new cover rather quickly, closely based on their concept, but for the rest of the album, I was a huge blank. After a few days of nothing but mediocre attempts at creating something for them, my creative block was pushing my frustration meter to the max, I needed some down time. I decided to take my camera and get some night pictures around my apartment complex, just to get away from the computer and do something I enjoy.




It was amazing how this impacted my creative block. Now to fully understand this, there was a big fight from some of the other occupants a few nights before, a mother and daughter. Luckily I was out of town for it, but it really affected me, and was depressing to know of plus to see the effects from it... however this served as great inspiration for the emotion of the album, and I worked it in. Using the feeling of hardship from domestic violence, I incorporated the photos, my own drawings, and some Photoshop brush work, and created something that had a nice feel for what they were looking for.








The things I took away from this experience with dealing with creative block have been a life saver…


1. Get away from the project
2. Do something you enjoy
3. Let your mind open back up for fresh input

It’s important as creative’s to keep the flow of inspiration fresh. Sitting and staring at your screen or sketch book for 8 hours or more tends to put a kink in the creative flow. Get away and get some new fresh input to your senses, it will do wonders to work out those kinks. You never know what will move you to a new creative direction!

Note: This job was done under Front Street Album Art & Design, this was before I changed my name freelance identity to Lantra Design.