JPF Home Page Forums General Messages General Message Forum Do you do your own artwork for your albums?

We have had a topic in the past regarding songwriters and performers who are visual artists as well. I would enjoy seeing the cover art created by our JPF members (and visitors) for their own albums and websites.

Here's pics of our three album covers - my brother did the first CD cover, which has become our main logo - I did our second CD - while our guitarist did the initial drawing that I put into the final cover design for number three -


Our first CD, Surrender Now, released in 1997.


Our second CD, Your Mind, released in 1999.


Our latest CD, Bridge to Presage, IOMA's 2006 Album of the Year.

Von from ONOFFON
http://www.onoffon.com/

You can see the cover art I did for my CD, "Sheltering Wind", as well as other paintings of mine--at my web site.

Emily

Left to right: Best of Bad Betsy, Again?, Media, Alter-Ego, Rock Candy, Schtuff

I did my own art work for my CD. It my avatar that I use here.

Hey guys...how do you post your art in here?? I keep trying to do it and it won't work!

Thanks...

Emily

I wanna know, too. Yes, I do my own artwork. I used to be in the graphic design business, and used to command a lot of money for doing this stuff. I wouldn't have anybody else do it for me.

Joe
www.soundclick.com/bands/7/joewrabek_music.htm
www.myspace.com/joewrabek
The Writer's Blog: http://nakedspacehamsters.blogspot.com

We did our own:


First CD, Ascend, released in 1998.


Second CD, Bending Chords, released in 2002.

Jeff

Very cool, OnOffOn. (Sorry, I don't know your real name.) I especially like the beveled effect on the second one.

Emily, your cover is very sweet and subtle. Your photo on the site looks great!

Hi, Iggy! I remember the one in the middle from when we were getting pictures for the chapters. I dig the Media album cover. Cool, 3D effect.

Oh, I recognize the logo, Michael. The 5 Years Ago Today album is really neat.

Very cool photography, Clamman.

Joe, cool retro 70's look on the cover.



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Hi, Jeff. I dig the second one but am having a hard time seeing the detail on the first one.

I also did all the artwork for both of our CDs, as well as my website. Both CD covers appear on our home page below. The one is also my avatar. I'm a design engineer with lots of CAD (Computer Aided Drawing) experience, which really helps.

Hi, Andy!

The first album cracked me up. The second was very cool.

Thanks. I used Adobe Illustrator and would highly recommend this software for anyone who wants to do their own covers/artwork. Very powerful and useful. I didn't find the learning curve too steep, but the software is pricey. Luckily, I had it available at work.

You can also upload the Illustrator files easily to DiscMakers using their templates to create your CD design.

Kaika

Arm & a sky, Jean. Arm & a sky...

Jeff

LOL, Jeff. LOL

Thanks, Jean, for looking and the comments.

I also use Adobe Illustrator for all my artwork. I found that a lot of other places besides CD manufacturers like receiving artwork done with it. A lot of other professional software that I've needed by other companies also accepts Illustrator files.

I took the photo, but had a (designer) friend actually lay out the artwork.
That's my little boy, Ethan himself under that table, and that's his drawing of Hop On Pop sitting there on the chair.

Nicely done, Pop!

Any more album pictures? Emily, I inserted your picture in for you. It was a little bigger than I thought it would be.

I used Christine from here on the boards and think she's wonderful, nothing but great response...Moker

A while back I was looking for a program that would allow me to put several different pictures on the same page. I found The Program PICTURE IT Photo Premium 7.0 by Microsoft. I just re-installed it in my computer to see if it had the templates for a CD insert. It does have the template where you can scan in your own pictures or whatever and print out the inserts. It also gives the Avery label numbers you need to print on. It doesn't allow any printing on the inserts so you would have to set up anything you want to add and print again. Something I have done from time to time. It also has the ability to print on the CD if you have the proper printer. It does have the ability to add text to the CD itself. There may be other programs that will also work. A bit tricky but something to consider.

I have to link to my cd cover because I don't have time to resize it to display in topic. My boyfriend just got his degree in graphic design so I will always have someone to design my cd's and my website (which is almost done...yay!)

Here is the front cover: http://photos.alisonnolan.com/cover.JPG

Here is a bad quality picture of the back cover (my favorite part): http://photos.alisonnolan.com/Image000.jpg

This was for my demo cd.

Wow... these are all very cool.
I used to have line drawings on my website, but I've taken them down. I don't have a CD cover yet, but I have a designer through my authors' co-op that I could probably arm-twist.
That's so far in the future for me...
Keep on truckin' everybody!

Linda

Wow, Alison, you're right that image is huge. But very cool!

Thanks for the compliment Moker!

Christine, what about the artwork for your albums. Can you post a link to them?

Thanks for asking.

Here's an online portfolio link if anyone wants to see some of my stuff - it's all different kinds of client stuff - CDs: demos to commercial, posters, press kits etc... many different styles:
http://graphics.syberdelix.com

Here's the cover from my band's last album.


If anyone wants a quote, just drop me a line. I've done many many CDs. Also, if you already have your art and just need help setting up your files to a manufacturer's specs, I can help with that kind of thing too.

Very cool and creative, Christine. Thanks for posting.

jeanb...
yes indeed... all 21 of them...
http://cdbaby.com/all/chevyford
rock on,
r.

Very cool, Richard. This one is my favorite of yours.

Well, I'm not much of a musician (my guitar playing makes my cat run and hide) hee hee ... but I DO do the CD design thing. Check out the "design" link on my site (2BTrudie.com) for lots of samples. I've been a designer for 15 years, but doing CD packaging is my favorite thing. You get this relatively small space to tell a story/convey a feeling. Very challenging and rewarding work!

Very cool, Trudie. Can you post one of your favorites?

Thanks! I've had some nice compliments on this cover from people visiting my site. People really seem to like the Noisebloc package too (with hand and block on cover), especially how I positioned the band's headshots in the black and red stripes inside.

Very nice subtle effect. Thanks for posting it.

I love all these images. Let's see if I can get this to work right...hopefully the size is OK.



We'd tried all sorts of approaches with the CD cover. They looked nice, but nothing quite clicked. Then I had this nutty idea and scanned some of the psychedelic doodling I'd done at the studio during the mixdown. Because several of the songs on the CD were hurricane related (and one is named Blue Tarp City), I used a blue tarp as a background, added a grommet, and started dissecting the doodle scan and Photoshopping.

Ohh, cool. It has a neat texture and the lettering and other bits look embossed. Very creative.