Shaped Symmetry

by symmetal on May 13, 2012 in Album Art, Black Metal, Death Metal, General Art, Grindcore, Other

Shaped CDs or LPs are an invention made for collectors and labels aswell. To generate more money from one single release of a band it’s common practice to release different editions. The regular release, a special digital release, country specific releases and special collector’s editions. They often have extra tracks, a booklet with way more pages, content and pictures and sometimes come as shaped CDs.

Depicted above is Dimmu Borgir’s Alive in Torment shaped CD. The other examples are Dismember’s Death Metal, Statovarius’ I Walk To My Own Song and Machetazo’s split with Marrow on silver vinyl with red splatter in a sawblade shape.

Data can only be recorded on sections of a shaped CD that form uninterrupted circular tracks. Other parts of the shape are purely decorative – but are still often finished to the same appearance as a CD. They appear silver and reflective on the data side of the CD, even though they contain no actual valid bytes and cannot be read (source).

Musician, Artist, Entrepreneur, Icon

by symmetal on May 3, 2012 in Album Art, Allgemein, General Art, Poster, Prints, Shirts

Jacob Bannon (portrait shot by Brook Pifer) is one of the most famous faces in the Hardcore scene. He is the vocalist and lyricist of Hardcore pioneers Converge, a famous graphic designer and artist and founder and CEO of the independent record label Deathwish Inc. He somehow can be compared to John Baizley of Baroness, who’s also a jack of all trades being a brilliant artist, musician and vocalist (I can’t wait for their new album being released on 17th July).

Bannon’s work is very bold and iconic. It uses very graphic stylistic elements combined with a grungy graffiti and silk screen technique. The artworks are mostly symbolic and very reduced, using only a minimum amount of colors.

He has worked as an artist for several bands – most notable for his own band Converge – like Shadows Fall, Bane, Everytime I Die, Underoath, As I Lay Dying, Fall Out Boy, Rise and Fall, Trap Them or Disfear to name just a few. He also art directs every Deathwish Inc. release and is responsible for several famous album covers and artworks, shirt prints, posters and art prints. One of these brilliant art prints is hanging nicely framed in my living room – Rise and Fall’s Our Circle is Vicious art print.

I would strongly recommend to have a look at his work and order some of his amazing hand-numbered silk screened art prints.

      

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