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[oinkbanana]

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[Officer Bukowski]

I'm all ears babyy

[oinkbanana]

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[plhogan]

Font suggestions and shit like that, fine. He probably knows more about that stuff because it's what he was learning while you were recording music and following your passion. Everything else he can keep to his godamn self, to try and change the basic concept of what you want is retarded and not at all in his realm of control.

Saying you should both hold acoustic guitars is dumb and he's dumb for saying it.

[Officer Bukowski]

It sounds like he's totally disregarding the whole premise of your idea which is to take normal images and distort them digitally. I agree the acoustic guitars idea is just dumb. I think the whole geometric lines idea is really cool and I'd be pretty stoked to have that on an album cover but it seems to pretty much have nothing to do with what you want.

I would let him know how you feel about it because it's your album not his. I don't think you'd be a backseat director for telling him how you want the art to be. It's your thing you should be in the front seat driving not in the backseat at all haha.

[oinkbanana]

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[Officer Bukowski]

I think your idea is potentially much more psychedelic and seems more fitting. I feel like the geometric lines would be a little too cutesy if you want it to be serious. I don't think optical illusion = psychedelic and the lines are trippy in an optical illusion kind of way. Your idea is more like distorted reality. What could be more psychedelic than that.

[devnulljp]

but instead of digitally altering the picture after, he wants to make us wear large pixels on our clothes to represent the digital aspect...

He's taking the piss right there. Tell him the 1950s was a long fucking time ago and to take a hike.
(Seriously, had a guy do this a loooong time ago with a band I was in. All went well til he turned up with -- I kid you not -- these headdress and loincloth Pochahontas-type Indian costumes for us to wear I don't think his feet touched the floor on the way out)

[oinkbanana]

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[smile_man]

Whoa whoa, are you obligated to use this person?

His ideas are clearly not jelling with your own, so why not find someone else?

[jrmy]

Whoa whoa, are you obligated to use this person?

His ideas are clearly not jelling with your own, so why not find someone else?

This +1,000,000.

Speaking as a graphic designer who has done plenty of CD / album designs for people, your designer is simply being a douche. While I do believe that there is some room for artistic vision on the designer's part in the process, the fact of the matter is that it is a service-based relationship. If the client wants something that the designer feels is hideous, the designer has a few options: 1) try to finesse the client's idea into something that satisfies both parties, 2) try to convince the client that they are wrong (tricky! Note that this is not the same as arguing with the client or shitting on their ideas, as your designer seems to be doing to you), 3) buckle down and do the work, or 4) quit.

While there are parts of your sketch that I might tweak (it is a sketch), I think the idea's great, and totally suits the music you've described. Hell, it's YOUR music. He is working for YOU.

I swear, the more fucking designers I meet (and obviously, I meet plenty), the more I like my dog.

[aen]

In my experience, you have to either work with someone you trust completely, or do it yourself. I think it's usually better for another artist to do the design work for music packages, but if you can't find someone who works, and you trust, then fuck it.

I want to introduce you guys to Dan, my personal "art department" Here's the LP cover he did for us





Pretty much just brought us a sketch and we said, yeah, go with it.
This is the one he did when we thought we were having machine printed "full color" covers



Each one kind of highlights a different aspect of our music, but I think both fit well. We went in without a plan for our artwork, and trusted in Dan, It went really well. although it seems like the guy you're working with now just doesn't get it...

[grindonomicon]

Apologies for rudeness, but I come at this from the punk-hardcore-grind scene, and as someone who runs a record label, and this is how it works for me.

Sometimes you just need to let an artist know you're about to smack them upside the damn head for fucking with the cover YOU ARE PAYING FOR. He is a graphic design artist working for you, not your art director. He takes orders and gets paid, cuz if he turns in shit, you laugh at him and let him keep his stoopid cover. You can find a much kinder way of saying this, like "Well, we know what we want for a cover, we don't want it changed, and if we're paying $xxx.xx for this cover, it's going to have to be what we envision. Or we will find another designer who can get the job done the way we want it."

In this day and age, you should be able to find someone to do your photoshop layout just the way you like it. If he doesn't get that you need to be happy with his work, and that's what a 'good job' is, can him. There's a million ppl out there with 'leet design/art skillz' who actually want to please their customers / clients.

Ask half a dozen or a dozen bands you know who did their cover, and how happy they were with it. You'll find at least one band with a cool, smart, easy-to-work-with, affordable artist.

[dubkitty]

speaking as someone who does production artist work and has done some design, i agree with grindonomicon 100%. if you're hiring someone as a designer/concept person, they can come in with all the cardboard pixels they want, but if you're hiring someone as a production artist to execute your idea, their job is to execute YOUR idea to the best of their ability. and even if you hire someone as a designer, IMO their function is to come up with a mutually agreeable concept, not to try to impose their own vision as if they were a Paris fashion designer. when someone works with album art, they should understand that they're working on packaging, and nowadays that the final piece will have to work in a CD-card sized format. the OP's artist sounds like he thinks his final will be hanging on a gallery wall. even if you're getting work done for free, the person who's doing the work should listen to you and work with you. you wouldn't put up with a bassist or auxiliary percussionist who forced everything to his way, and the packaging is the first thing a fair percentage of potential listeners will see so it's important that it reflect your overall vision. consider what he suggests, but if you don't like it, insist that your ideas obtain. it's your project. you get to decide.

[oinkbanana]

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