Harmonies for the Haunted

Nikki Stringfield guitarist for 'The Iron Maidens' started to record songs for an EP album release in the back end of 2019. As facebook friends, I received message, "Would I be interested in creating the album cover and packaging?". The collaboration started via e-mail back and forth / beaming across the Atlantic (LA to London). The title, 'Harmonies for the Haunted' was the starting point for design. Nikki had planned a photo session and was able to send me some really cool photo's. Various visuals were created of the cover artwork and the six-panel CD Digipak.

Working with Nikki was a joy, the artwork came together really very easily and it was a fun process for me. The next brief for the CD label artwork was to possibly incorporate Nikki's Schecter guitar fretboard design. The 12th fret skull and beautiful vines running up and down the neck. One very cool idea that Nikki had was to take the fretboard and create a circle of it that runs around the outer edge of the CD label. I work very much on the principle that 'anything can be done with a great suite of graphics tools, Adobe Create Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign) plus my amazing MacBook Pro. Work was done using high res images of the fretboard, and basically cutting it up into 4 segments (repeated) and then 'polar coordinate' the image.

We have focussed on creating a great package for 'Harmonies for the Haunted'. Working so far away geographically was no problem with fast fibre broadband connections. The time difference actaully helped as I would be creating during the day and would send Nikki visuals over in the evening, just as she was getting up - 8 hour time difference - and then as I slept, Nikki would think on the designs and drop me a line for updates.

Once the album artwork was completed, work began on associated merchandise designs, t-shirt, sticker, 11"x17" poster, pick, fridge magnet and postcard. The icing on the cake resulted in a 12" vinyl picture album.