The fun

I officially started working up the Airship cover art layout, today. This is good, but I can’t help but feel a little sad when the creative process reaches this stage. When you’re still coming up with ideas, there’s an atmosphere of excitement: you’re looking, investigating, collecting and reinventing; there are doodles, collages, sketches and drafts—it’s messy and it’s fun, and anything is possible!

The doubt

But, once a final layout is in sight, there’s only executing the idea. You obsess over details and things take a more serious turn. On top of this, no matter how confident you are in your concept, you can’t help but doubt yourself, just a little. Suddenly, you find a dozen things wrong and you’re tempted to throw it all out and start again. Today, I found myself revisiting earlier concepts and asking all kinds of questions about the one I finally settled on. Like: did I choose the right idea?; would colour be better than black and white?; should the typeface be changed?; does the album even have the right title?

The pause

It helps to pause and take some time to calm down. If an idea is really that bad, it can be changed (or at least be embraced for its badness). I don’t think my concept is quite so terrible. But, you will be a more objective judge than I.

FORGOTTEN FIELDS