The Devil Put Dinosaurs Here
The parameters to define a design are not beautiful or ugly, or I like it or I don´t like like it. The thing is if it´s communicating or not what the creator wanted to express.
When we speak about the art of the Alice in Chains covers, we can say that the design parameter is reached, most of the covers transmit what the album is musically, conceptually and message the band wants to send to their fans. Over the years, the design has improved album to album, because they were made with more financial and technological. And it shows.
For this great album, this parameter is more than achieved, and in my opinion, ranks N°1, as the best Graphic design of an álbum of our beloved band, beating the eponymous Alice in Chains.
The Creative Director is Nicole Frantz and the art and design direction was guided by Ryan Clark from Invisible Creature. http://www.invisiblecreature.com/
From the advertising campaign, which was an atomic hit in terms of communication, and left us in an expectation position for a long time, through their oficial website. They started planting the seeds of doubt regarding the album title.
Then they made the album cover release, in which they showed us a dinosaur Triceratops skull with horns in a strong red background, which also generated a lot of feedback and made a lot of noise, a lot of people didn´t like the color of the cover and moreover received good reviews.
To our surprise the cover was taking variations of color, and in the course of the campaign we discovered it was not red, the jewel case was red! And when the skull image started to appear it was revealed that there were two skulls, one red and one green superimposed, and out of the jewel case the two skulls figure formed the face of the devil in the center.
This was surprising and overwhelming for its originality, I can say that as a design is just brilliant, simple and complex at the same time, leaving the standars very high for the next projects. I can only label this as the perfect cover.
After revealing this wonderful cover, the album came out and well, the music will be analyzed in another review, and with it the respective booklet which continued surprising us, because it´s full of signs and symbols that remind us of the past and gives us hope for the future of our band, they are still here with us but they don´t forget their roots or their friends who are no longer with them.
On the inside of the booklet we find it is fulfilled with a game of colors, and when you put it behind the red jewel case, you can see what is "hidden" to the eyes. In the same way as on the cover, there are two dinosaurs images, a Pachycephalosaur and ankylosaur, also with a devil's face in the center.
In the image of the ankylosaur (left) there are numbers next to a raven, which correspond to the date of birth of William DuVall, 9 6 67 . In the Pachycephalosaur image, next to a very long-handled shovel is the date of birth of Mike Starr, April 4, 66.
An anagram was releasead which contained the album title but with the letters scrambled. It was virtually impossible to decipher as there had no spaces between words and the title seemed to be very long, but it caused the expected effect anyway and the expectation was really big.
The album title refers to the popular religious belief that Satan himself buried dinosaur fossils on earth to confuse the faithful and mankind of the existence of pre-history and the creation of the world. At this point the band sends a strong social religious criticism, not only with the title of the album, even with their lyrics and the general concept of the album, creating a total irony.
After revealing the name, we discovered that the Christmas message the band sent in December of the previous year, was an important clue, where a red devil dressed as Santa was carrying colorful dinosaurs in his sack. Of Course no one connected the information until it was released. was sent clear that no one made the connection before and it´s clear that is a graphic expression of the social and ironic criticism exposed before.
On the back, we find a background image where there are two men digging up bones, and above them is a color texture that disappears behind the jewel case, and on the lower left corner there is a trident, with the date of birth of Jerry Cantrell, 3 18 66.
Then we see the image of some superimposed hands, if you see them directly you see six fingers, representing the 6 members the band had had in its history. When put under the jewel case, only 4 fingers are there, representing the number of members the band has always had, the number of members that it has today. At the lower left side there is a skeleton holding a bone, and the date of birth of Layne Staley, 8 22 67.
After all this, I can think that the raven, the shovel, the trident and the skeleton are symbols that reflect the musicians in one form or another. But here's the mystery, which is WHY the dates of birth of Sean Kinney 5 27 66, and Mike Inez 5 14 66 don´t bring any symbolism??
And another mystery ... WHY on the following page there are a series of symbols, including the raven and the hand with 6 fingers? Is there any kind of logic?
After all these doubts they left, I look forward to any of you Bleed´s friends have any of these answers.
The advertising campaign began with riddles and surprises and ends up leaving homework, trying to discover the meanings of riddles on the album design.
But that aside, I feel very proud of our beloved musicians, as like as Layne did in the old times, you really notice their hands throughout the design, details and messages that just a faithful fan, like us, can discover and read.
They don´t forget where they come from, they don´t forget their friends, they share with us the gift of memories, not only on this album, in the videos (voices) on stage (Sean´s drum kit) and in the love they give to us with each chord. Many of us feel a great loss, and it was really hard to recover from the deaths of Layne and Mike, but at least for me, this album was a Re-birth, a new kind of falling in love with my beautiful band of my entire life.
Article by: Chainer.
Translated by: Schulz.