Life on Earth Alternate Cover

It's coming up to a year since I finished the artwork for The Moons 'Life on Earth', and I thought now was a good time to reveal the first idea I pitched to Andy. It still resonates with me, and personally, I think is a more iconic design than what we eventually went with, (which I do still love by the way), but just feel like this shades it. It's more striking, and for me, looks more genuinely 60's than the final execution.

I remember finishing it and having that excited feeling the my stomach, then emailing it off and it getting rejected. That feeling when you really love something, and your client doesn't, and nothing you say will change their mind is really crushing. I think sometimes it's a problem of working on email, face-to-face you can really demonstrate your passion for a piece, and it can be infectious.

It takes me about a week to pick myself up after a debunk, and generally I can't sleep very well during that time, it's very dramatic I know! Anyway, we kept some of these elements for the artwork throughout the booklet, so it wasn't entirely wasted, and, together with Andy we forged a great campaign that I was really happy with.

You can buy the 'Life on Earth' with it's actual cover here, it's a great piece of work.

Get in touch ben@citizenstudios.co.uk

Visit www.citizenstudios.co.uk

Or call 07764 898 010

Citizen Wiki page

I've just set up a Wikipedia page for Citizen Studios and complied a list of all my major label work, I'm pretty proud of it as it stands. Need to get something lined up for the rest of 2010 now.

Artist	Release	Label	Date
Medium 21	Acting Like a Mirror	Universal Records	2003
Medium 21	Daybreak Vs Pride	Universal Records	2003
Medium 21	Black and White Summer	Universal Records	2003
Medium 21	Killings From the Dial	Universal Records	2003
Maps	Start Something	Mute	2005
Maps	Lost My Soul	Mute	2005
Maps	Don't Fear the Sun	Mute	2005
Maps	International EP	Mute	2006
Kooky Records	Kooky is 10	Kooky Records	2006
Maps	It Will Find You	Mute	2007
Maps	We Can Create	Mute	2007
Maps	You Don't Know Her Name	Mute	2007
Maps	To The Sky	Mute	2007
Durutti Column	Sunlight To Blue... Blue To Blackness	Kooky Records	2008
Slipstream	Mantra	North Star Records	2008
White Belt Yellow Tag	Tell Your Friends (It All Worked Out)	Distiller Records	2009
White Belt Yellow Tag	Remains	Distiller Records	2009
White Belt Yellow Tag	Tell Your Friends (It All Worked Out)	Distiller Records	2009
White Belt Yellow Tag	Methods	Distiller Records	2010
White Belt Yellow Tag	Always and Echoes	Distiller Records	2010
The Moons	Torn Between Two	Acid Jazz	2010
The Moons	Nightmare Day	Acid Jazz	2010
The Moons	Life on Earth	Acid Jazz	2010
The Moons	Let It Go	Acid Jazz	2010

New Moons: Let it Go

This is the last single from the Moons album 'Life on Earth', it's called 'Let it Go'. 

The art was inspired by the opening line of the song "Collect your ammunition, shoot a bullet in my back" and is the last piece of work to feature Dr. Moonhead who has been on all the releases so far. This cover marks his death, we all felt he'd run his course and it was time to kill him off.

As far as the style goes it follows on from the previous artwork in it's application, but it's much more progressive in it's composition. Overall it's my favourite of all the covers, this is probably because I created each piece from scratch so it feels the freshest to me. 

Pointless fact for you; The snub nosed revolver used was traced from a photograph of the one used by Jack Ruby.

This marks the end of a great campaign, Acid Jazz have been a great label to work with and The Moons are really kicking up some interest, so everybody's happy.

Eat the Art

Two good things happened this week, the first, the Moons Vinyl arrived. It's actually the hardest thing in the world to get the final artwork out of the label once it's all finished, it always annoys me. I've been known to actually buy it to get my hands on it. But Acid Jazz are a different class and they've sent me 3 copies. Thank you to Archie for modelling it for me.

The second is the first placement of the 'Methods' artwork that's begun to creep into the media, this (above) was in this weeks NME.

Life on Earth Arrives

We've finally completed the artwork for 'Life on Earth'. It's been a long project and working closely with Acid Jazz and the band, we've developed a style that started as a seed on the first single and progressed from there. My only reference points from Andy Crofts, (The Moon's front man, writer, and Paul Weller's keyboard player) were to reflect the unashamed 60's sound of The Moons and throw a little bit of Saul in there.

It's been a great project to work on, to the credit of Acid Jazz each release has had a physical vinyl 7" and the album is being release as an LP as well as a CD, so it's a great showcase for the artwork.

Here's the booklet artwork that supported the CD release  (click to enlarge);

Spread 1

Spread 2

Spread 3

And finally the back cover.

I was really pleased with how the back cover turned out, I love the typesetting on it and I really liked the Planet Head illustration, this featured as an early idea for the album cover, but he band didn't dig it so I moved on.

To find out more about the band and when the album's being released click here.

Nightmare Day Single release

The second single from the Moons, 'Nightmare Day' is due for release in January 10, with artwork by my goodself, Citizen. this is the follow up single to 'Torn Between Two', released in 2009.

I've continued the theme of the illustration style from the first single, which incidentally is something that has carried over to the album artwork. The Moons wanted to keep a strong Saul Bass feel to the art, but move it on from the first release, principally by the introduction of colour.

Working on stuff and filling my resources

I haven't posted anything for a while, everything seems held up by record companies, but I'm pleased to report that in the new year I'll be posting single and album artwork for White Belt Yellow Tag, and single and albums artwork for The Moons. Everything is done and signed off, but we're just waiting for release dates.

In the meantime all this work has forced me to overhaul my resource archive, recently I found this great site and pretty much downloaded everything on it: mediamilitia.com.

So first I'm going to get married, then January there's going to be a whole raft of work coming out of the studio. It's some of my best work, I'm looking forward to sharing it.