Album Cover Design and More

Comissioned by: TA-80, a rock/pop/punk band from Tempe, AZ

Design Brief: TA-80 needed full color art for their upcoming album “Mute City Warning” which would be released on their independent label, Phat Phorty Records in Vinyl LP, CD and Cassette formats. The album title referenced the city in the early 1990’s Super Nintendo racing game F-Zero, while the album overall had a theme celebratory and nostalgic of this time period. All of the front and back covers and interior booklets of these various formats needed to be designed with a cohesive theme and colors. I was also asked to create a one color t-shirt design using some elements and imagery from the album cover.

Scope of Project: I started with the vinyl album cover, as this would be the largest printed image and all of the various formats would be based on it. I created a comic book-style scene of one of the vehicles from the game F-Zero in a desert landscape approaching the titular Mute City at dusk. With the comic book style established, I also created individual illustrated portraits of the band members for the packaging. Once the cover had been settled, I created a color palette for use in the rest of the album cover designs. The LP included front and back images. The CD included the design of a 4-page booklet as well as a backing tray card and the one color design which will print in the CD discs. The cassette tape design included a J-card and the one color print for the cassette tape shell. Finally, I created the t-shirt design to continue the theme presented in the album cover in a one color design.