CD Cover Design 01

This was a passion project that I did back in 2014 I think. I was working on it for more than any by then semi-professional designer would care to addmit, (because of other obligations though). It's an album cover for a band from Sweden and a close personal friend that plays that instrument thingy with the 6 strings and whatnot... (Just kiddin', I'm aware of the electric guitar) : D

I have also designed their logo.

... Check 'em out:

Domination - Victims of illusion

So about the cover:
I did NOT hear any of the songs beforehand, but I read the lyrics and listened to their 5 track EP, so I knew that they were anti-politically oriented with stoner elements in between (although a thrash metal bant). When they told me that the album title is going to be "Samsara" - "continuous flow" as in "Eternal life"... The idea for this cover came to me almost instantly...
I wanted the cover to have a couple dozen different stories to it, with a touch of controversy. I wanted different people to see different meanings.

Here is one for example:

Being different... - cast out by society,
Thinking with your own mind and refusing to be a programmed robot or a puppet - Fucked by politics,
Sex, Life, Death... - YOU WILL BURN IN HELL!!!
Why am I even given a free will? Why do I even exist if I’m already destined to damnation?

About the golden egg... As you can see it's cracked.
One spermatozoon is curious and wants to know what's inside... (Little does he know that it's better for him to know nothing, (John Snow)..."Curiosity killed the cat")...
- That one spermatozoon has fallen for the lie and entered the egg, the other ones are fading away... They died anyway... The one that is being locked on the target is not fading (yet) so it could mean that maybe he does stand a chance to beat the system, even though the target illustrates that he is going to be get sooner or later

anyway...

We don't know what's inside the egg, it can either be empty OR simply filled with darkness...
Both of those raise a billion questions, and that's what's so awesome about it...
Is it worth to be born, to live? Is life a dark place, is there anything worth living for, why bother?

Now this 1 spermatozoon that is swimming away is made in a blurry kind of distortion to illustrate how it's not simply different and/or stupid to go a different way, but he is swimming away in a hurry,
as fast as he can, because he saw what awaits him if he gets blinded by the shiny outside of the darkness within!
Now, was the egg already cracked and did he recognized something evil, or was HE inside and cracked the egg to escape is something that everyone needs to figure out for themselves... Both ideas are cool, but if he was already inside,
and now trying to escape the target that locked him - that could be abortion illustrated in a
metaphorical picture form. As in, once you are blinded by it, the only way out is total annihilation (or is there a way out at all?)...

Or how about this: Once a word leaves the lips, it can NEVER be taken back. In a personal/private life or political...

The slightly darker background was not incidental...
The redness in a way to illustrate the womb, but dark, to point out that YOUR darkness and YOUR demons can not simply be traded in for an eternal life of light (illustrated with the golden egg)... Not everything that shines is golden...

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