Lately I’ve been working hard on two major projects, one of those being Polaris’ The Human Illusion artwork
Polaris is a 5 piece progressive metal band based out of Boston, Massachusetts, USA. Their second EP, The Human Illusion, will be released on September 7th, 2007.
This is what I came up with :
The branches against the light you can see on the right were much thicker in the beginning, but I had to trim them a little in order to leave space for the record credits. Actually the CD booklet only got 4 pages, and the inner double page contains the lyrics. So all credits had to fit on the fourth page. Of course I could have reduced the font size, but it quickly became unreadable! I had no choice but using my magic chain saw.
The band also asked me to remove the diamond pattern which I originally had put over the artwork. However you can see the original version in the gallery!
When I first started working on the artwork, I wanted to use a palette of greens that would be much more bitter than the ones that you can see on the final picture, getting inspiration from the spring perfumes, but also because I wanted to stress the stolen youth of the female character – a vivd, fresh colour, witness for a biting strength which will yet get lost in the urban foam.
Green isn’t really one of my favourite colours – at least, not one of those I work mostly with. But when the concept started to come to my mind, green was everywhere. My goal wasn’t to create a psychedelic mood with unexpected tones, but to carry a feeling, an idea, a concept.
Nonetheless I had to tarnish the whole color scheme in order to fit Polaris’ taste.
While I was working on this project, I had time to think about the record’s title. “The Human Illusion” concept could be interpreted very differently depending who you ask. My own interpretation deals with a social discomfort feeling, the unability to take enough risks to earn your own freedom – a kind of urban katatonia.
Polaris also asked me to create their new logotype. I cleaned the font “a theme for murder”, and I drew some parts to make the foreground plants join the text.
I hope you like the result! :)