Something I often hear is that the cover of Zhongyu Is Chinese for Finally is very eye-catching. Back when I was first thinking about what the cover should look like, I thought of an old Chinese propaganda poster that I found really interesting.
It’s called 边陲小花 (Biānchuí xiǎohuā) which could be translated Little Flower of the Borderland. It’s very different from the general style of propaganda posters, and has such a beautiful pastoral mood that I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
I don’t know who the artist was, though I have done a fair amount of research. I considered just cropping the artwork and using it for the cover, but decided that it would be even better to have an adaptation taking the general idea in a different style. I immediately thought of my nephew Tristan Olson, who is mostly concentrating on writing these days, but has also published cartoons.
I had a feeling his style would take the image into an interesting direction, and I couldn’t have been more right. As soon as he showed me an early draft, I knew I had the cover I wanted.
Back in 2015, when all of this was developing, there was a sudden rush when Moonjune informed me that they were aiming for a release date in May of 2016. The audio files were all done, mixed and mastered, but the packaging was still only a vision in my mind. I gave Tristan the new deadline and started researching how to do the layout of the triple-fold sleeve. Like most Moonjune releases, there would be no jewel case, which was fine by me.
I hit up the band’s official photographer, Danette Davis, for a band photo, and we set up a session. It was a whole low-budget affair with a cloth backdrop set up in our carport. It turned out great, however, and I love the picture that ended up with the CD.
Lorem Ipsum has been the industry’s standard dummy text ever since the 1500s.
I did the layout in Gimp using a template I got online for the packaging. I found a Chinese font that looks like calligraphy, and used that for the 终于. The English band name was put together using a many-step series of Gimp transformations.
I guess the back cover will get its own post, though the overall story is similar.