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This is an alternative album cover design for the 2018 studio album by Nine Inch Nails, Bad Witch. The process of designing this album cover took a while as I wasn't happy with how it looked for a period of about 6 months and was constantly iterating it, mainly in Adobe Photoshop and InDesign. I believe that my album cover re-design successfully communicates a similar feel to that of the original cover, which is achieved through obscure subject matter and composition.
The initial album cover for Bad Witch contains five strange looking images which I believe convey a dark and mysterious essence.
Above shows the original album cover for Nine Inch Nails', 2018 studio album, Bad Witch.
To convey similar themes to that of the original album cover within my own design, I chose to take a photo of an X-Ray that had been collecting dust under my bed. The X-Ray was taken a week after I broke my right arm in three places from a skateboarding injury that occurred back in 2016.
Original X-Ray image is shown on the far left, the two the other images have been digitally manipulated in Adobe Photoshop.
Originally this project was meant to be a re-design of a different album from Nine Inch Nails. That album was Pretty Hate Machine and was the band's debut album, created almost entirely by frontman, Trent Reznor back in 1989. This particular album is my all time favourite and I wanted to re-design this cover not only out of the love I have for the music featured on it but also out of the utter fascination I have with the unique appearance of this album cover.
I was so obsessed with this album cover at one point that I had it custom printed onto my phone case.
The sharp, threatening looking shapes, uncertain subject matter, unconventional placement of text and overall composition creates a visual which is extremely intriguing to me.
Not only do I think this album cover looks awesome but believe it perfectly communicates the music featured within it.
Although I have an infatuation with this particular album, halfway through the design process I decided that the project would be better suited to the re-design of their more recent 2018 album, Bad Witch. This was mainly due to challenges I faced in trying to replicate the unique visual style of Pretty Hate Machine and a realisation I had in which Bad Witch would be a better album to re-design as the original cover contains images of bones, which was the centrepiece of own design.
Above features one of the early outcomes I was quite happy with during this drawn out project.
A year after completing the re-design of Bad Witch, I decided to design two promotional posters, pertaining to a similar aesthetic.
I manipulated the images featured on the posters in a way that makes the subject matter appear mysterious and uncertain, just like how the images are conveyed on the original album cover.
