Thievery Corporation - Versions Artwork by Matthew Curry

Matthew Curry is a GRAMMY Nominated® designer, illustrator and painter that resides and works from his studio in the Washington DC area and is the principal of the design studio, Imagefed.

Thievery Corporation's Versions Cover Artwork was designed in a joint collaboration by Curry & friend and fellow designer, Neal Ashby. The packaging has been featured in the 47th Design Annual of Communication Arts and was recently nominated for a GRAMMY for Best Recording Package.

You can check out more of Matthew Curry & Imagefed's work here.

Spiritualized - Let it Come Down Ltd Edition Sleeve Design

I've recently featured Spiritualized limited album covers for Ladies & Gentlemen and the latest album A&E whilst neglecting Let It Come Down, well, I got one in the post this week so decided to do a feature.

Farrow had seen the work of sculptor Don Brown who's work is focused on his wife Yoko. During the same period, Pierce (Spiritualized) had been reading some psychology about the workings of the brain and I got interest­ed in the idea that when you see an image of a face that is concave, your brain is so used to seeing eyes and noses that stick out that it finds it impossible to read.

Brown then created a portrait of Yoko that could be indented into the limited edition plastic case. Although Farrow didn't create the image, he has said producing this case was much more rewarding and enjoyable than Ladies & Gentlemen.



(I'll be adding more photos of this soon)

Concept and design: Farrow/Spaceman.
Sculpture: Yoko by Don Brown, courtesy of Sadie Coles HQ London

Spiritualized - Songs in A & E Album Art

This week, I managed to pick up a special edition copy of Spiritualized's - Songs in A & E. I featured Ladies & Gentlemen previously on the blog, which was designed by Mark Farrow who has again teamed up with Spiritualized's Jason Pierce to create the new album sleeve.

The main designer of the project Gary Stillwell's inspiration for the new album cover comes from Jason Pierce's near to death lengthy spell in hospital with pneumonia. Songs in A&E comprises of a 32 page booklet consisting of photos of Pierce on various drips and lots of needles.

Farrow and the main designer on the project, Gary Stillwell, were struck by the beauty of these functional objects. “The idea was to elevate them and draw attention to them,” says Farrow. “They are incredible things … on a completely la-la level I love the fact that [in the photographs] they look like pinned insects, they take on a beauty when you see them presented in that way...”

Please comment, how do you think it compares to the previous sleeve designs of Ladies & Gentlemen and Let it Come Down?

Mürmür - Barrucchi 92 CD Sleeve Artwork

I stumbled across this cd sleeve designed by an Italian based creative studio Happycentro+Sintetik. The Artwork is for a band called Murmer, I can't say I know anything about them, but the artwork is lovely. I will be checking out their music very soon.

Unkle - War Stories CD Sleeve Design & Packaging designed by Robert Del Naja

This is an amazing collectors item designed by Rovert Del Naja (3D from Massive Attack). Consisting of a 50 page booklet containing fantastic artwork including paintings, photos, sketches & illustrations.

UNKLE - Psyence Fiction & Never Never Land CD Album Artwork by Futura 2000

Menomena - Friend and Foe Interactive CD Sleeve Design

The Menomena album cover displays some gorgeous illustrations by Craig Thompson better known for his graphic novel 'Blankets'. The sleeve has different illustration on each of its 4 sides and by rotating the disc you get variations of the artwork.



Menomena: Friend and Foe from Mr Truffle on Vimeo.

Check out this video to show how the artwork is interactive. I would like to thank Sleavage.com for their images and video for this post.

Arcade Fire - Neon Bible Deluxe Edition Boxset

Unfortunately, I've not got hold of one thee, but I found this video on youtube of the Arcade Fire's deluxe edition lenticular box set and mini flip books and poster.

Radiohead - Amnesiac Ltd Edition

I love Radiohead's artwork, Amnesiac was released back in 2000, the first I had seen of these library style limited edition cd digipaks. The artwork is glorious. Beautiful.

Blur - Think Tank Ltd Edition Sleeve

This was the Ltd Edition Cd Sleeve for Blur's Think Tank album in 2003. As much as I liked this style, the use of the red fabric hard back book always felt to me like a rip off of Radiohead's Amnesiac which was released 3 years previous.

Foals CD Cover Art

Thanks to White Writing, I stole her post, but I too love this artwork for the Foals. The illustrations are by Tinhead, a 21 year old student and illustrator from Brighton, who has been described as "the sixth member of the band". Foals Front man Yannis, says of Tinhead;

"He creates something visual that matches what we want the music to sound like, there are all these weird lines, humming birds and bright colours."

Past & Present Inspiration

This is my own personal copy of Spiritualized 'Ladies and Gentlemen we are floating in space'. The CD doesn't work and I've popped the pill but I just had to keep hold of it. This is one of the first album's I bought in which the CD Sleeve & Packaging just blew me away and really inspired me to get into graphic design.



I did infact download Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' for free, but as soon as this glorious box set was released I decided to splash out £40. Radiohead always impress me with their cd sleeve designs of which I'll post more when I get round to it.