MAAD Interactive Agency - North East - Articles

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	MAAD were commissioned by record label Global Underground to develop a CD cover that would be eye-catching in-store yet still live up to the impeccable design standards the label has a reputation for. Having picked up the gauntlet thrown down by Global Underground, MAAD embarked on the embryonic stages of the creative process. Developing an idea that would eventually become the cover art.	We wanted to set the covershot apart from the a-typical artwork, which is ever present with bands these days i.e. bold colours with this months latest typeface in bold across the cover bearing little or no relation to the artists who write the music. After much deliberation we decided to personalise the artwork by incorporating every song title into the album cover itself. This gave a real ownership of the artwork to the artists themselves and brought their thoughts and ideas right into the development stages of the creative process.



	An elevator seemed an obvious choice for the covershot as it’s a room which transports you to another place, this gave us instant surrealism as the doors could open anywhere. We felt this was an apt place to begin.	Props were chosen to represent track names on the album. For example the track name indestructible, a cockroach was chosen, as these tough little insects are capable of surviving a nuclear holocaust and then staying alive by dining on a bar of soap!
		Concept developed, scene set, props chosen. It was time to source locations and do some test shots.

	(Top) Conceptual sketches (Bottom) Inspirational imagery.


		The first idea was to find an elevator large enough to recreate the sketch accurately. Some articles would be placed in the lift and others would be digitally added after the shoot. The main problem with recreating the conceptual sketch as an actual photograph would be finding an elevator with the right ambience and length! The elevator dimensions would have been 7 metres long. As you can imagine no elevator exists this size. So the gauntlet was thrown at our 3D department who set about modelling the elevator in a virtual environment.


	(Top) Lift test shot. (Bottom) Lift test composition.	> Back to top



	With such a shift in direction from the real to the virtual it was key that the elevator created for the (virtual) shoot needed to be modelled, lit, textured and then rendered in the correct manner.	Texture maps were specially created to add photorealism to the elevator. This was a combi- nation of airbrushed artwork and real world textures photographed specifically for the piece. Created in tandem with the textures was the lighting rig.





	(Main Image) Shadow pass / inital lift render. (left) Wire frame. (Middle) Lighting pass. (Right) Photo texture.
	The task of building such a ‘rig’ was quite unlike any other that could be created outside of a computer. Lights were placed throughout the scene with one key difference, the light sources were invisible and only the light rays themselves could be seen.	To get the right ambience into the scene a separate shadow pass was developed which could be added into the scene separately allowing other objects composited in the scene later to be masked by the elevators shadows.
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	The Photoshop composition work at this point remained the same. Most objects were always going to be added into the scene afterwards. Each object composited into the scene was positioned and photographed the exact distance from the camera as if it had been in the original 3D software.	Once photographed each object was worked to meet the exact needs of the scene. Some objects were hand drawn into the scene others were placed with reflections and shadows and then coloured to match the scene.


	(Top) Various lift composition artwork. (Bottom) Before and after Imagery.> Back to top



	Once the image has been rendered and all other photographic imagery composited together and flattened to a single image. It is then up to a digital retouch artist to add a final touch of magic. Highlights, colours and focal points were subtly adjusted. And finally a special digital gloss technique was airbrushed over to iron out any miscellaneous image creases left from the composition work. So, gauntlet picked up, passed around and highly polished. MAAD mission accomplished.

		Final artwork > Back to top



	Software used: XSI 6, Photoshop CS2. Hardware: Quad core 2.3 Ghz custom built PC, Dual Core 2.5 Ghz G5, Wacom Intuos A4 pad, Cannon D1 Digital Camera and a couple of pencils. Time Taken: 1 month 10 days.	Release: The album Club Trafikana by artists Trafik is available through Global Underground at the beginning of March 2007. www.globalunderground.co.uk

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