charliewagers

Hi all, Appreciate the kind responses. I really just wanted to come by and post my side of the story. Hopefully giving you a little more behind the packaging design would make everyone a little more excited for the record. Last thing I wanted to mention: if you guys think that the members of the band do not read this forum, you're very incorrect. The guys in the band went out of their way to text me and tell me about the negative reactions that were being said. I've got pretty thick skin, and I honestly prefer constructive critique when it comes to my work. The main problem I had was the reactions I saw were... well... not constructive at all. IE: "that cover arts sucks." I see some of you in person, and interact with some of you online, and found your comments to be pretty hurtful. I'm all for the constructive criticism. Just don't be a dick. And with that, I'm probably gonna go back to avoiding this board. I'll leave you all with a couple of screen grabs from my end. http://imgur.com/a/S43AG

Goddammit. I couldn't resist. Too many people texting me--including members of the band--telling me about how hard everyone's shitting on my cover, so I caved and broke my "Never look at Vinyl Collective" rule. A few things. The artwork is comprised of photographs I took myself while traveling in Iceland. Before my trip, I convened with the band and we all agreed it would be awesome to use photos from the trip for the record. IE: "Iron Glacier" especially fits with the glacial subject matter. The cover image is actually a photo of an iceberg field, and there's another photo from this same location inside the packaging. You can see Metal Blade used some of these photos on the teaser video. I see a lot of complaining about the typography: which is actually blind-embossed on the gatefold jacket. We wanted the type fancy die-cut, but it was actually rejected from the pressing plant for being too intricate. So instead I got everyone on board for the type on the cover to be invisible, just embossed into the paper stock. There'll also be a sticker on the shrink-wrap/poly-bag, but that's a minuscule detail not worth mentioning. As for the "deluxe'ness" of the packaging, you get an embossed Gatefold jacket that's printed on a sturdy uncoated stock. Two inner sleeves that are actually printed wth metallic inks with a glossy finish, and an etching on the d-side. Oh, and the USA and EUR versions have different d-side etchings. I hand-drew the illustrations for the etchings, based on photos from the rest of the packaging. I was thinking about possible hosting a giveaway online to giveaway one of these original drawings. Though the general attitude in this thread makes me think no one gives a shit about the art. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's all I can take for now. Time to try and be productive after having all winds taken outta my sails.