Here, I could enjoy a sizable deviation from our norm (though to Rush’s credit, unlike so many other artists, they always planned well ahead - allowing at least six months for each project to unfold).
#RUSH 2112 ALBUM MEANING WINDOWS#
With Andrew’s portraits as reference, I worked in a more urgent and gestural style than I usually was inclined to with (say) Power Windows to complete the three portraits in less than a week. Neil liked the feel of the sketch, and it was with little-to-no convincing that I fell into step with his immediate response to it. It was always intended as the “sketch” for the actual painting I had planned. The painting that I did on an 18” square board was done between my morning coffee and lunch. I resisted all National Geographic or NASA photography, and felt that we should depict fleeting … with fleeting. I loved how his explanation of Vapor Trails speaks to the flash of light that we know as our life, how life is fleeting like the comet passing above. But a wonderful thing to be collaborating again with Neil after five years. An adjustment, certainly … but newer and different ways of thinking for enhancing the viewer’s experience.Ī culmination of years of silence and healing. We also embraced the opportunity to populate the inner panels of the book with new art for each song’s particular theme.
Rather then bemoaning the decreasing surface area of the 12” LP to the CD booklet cover, we knew to keep the art more iconographic and suitable for the 4.75” square. This was the first time we approached the ‘album’ for what the CD package really offered and inspired. What band in all of rock and roll would allow their art director to propose (with a straight face) a diagram of a nut and a bolt for such a potentially vast word as ‘counterparts’? So vast a word, that Neil and I could not stop thinking big. Command-Z means never having to say you’re sorry. And, this was the genesis of a digital technology where I could move away from traditional retouching with bleach and dyes on a dye-transfer print, combining disparate images that would be composited into a final (and improbable) image on a singular print … to where I could achieve all that ‘in the post’ with photo manipulation in Photoshop-all within the digital realm.
#RUSH 2112 ALBUM MEANING FULL#
I have always enjoyed the outcome of combining our full scale set of the foreground water, the boy and subway platform … with the miniature wall of dice as the subway tiles. Hugh (left) and Rush (Image credit: Andrew MacNaughtan (Rush))īig project.
#RUSH 2112 ALBUM MEANING HOW TO#
And, they knew how to let our visuals afford humor and mystery. I also came to discover, and delight in, a realization that these guys were into puns. They were the point of departure for every album we did. His wonderful titles were always eagerly anticipated by this art director.
They inspire images and I have always been spoiled with his being the consummate wordsmith that he is. And, like some songs - this one came to me in an instant. I’m pleased that the outcome was so close to my initial vision. Being Hugh, he came up with 11.ĭespite budgetary limitations, for that time, and the challenges this concept posed… this was a pretty ambitious piece to undertake - from the cover to the inner-sleeve. Still an integral part of the extended Rush family, we asked him to pick the 10 best sleeves he’s created for the band. Not only did he create the band’s classic Starman logo for their 1976 follow-up 2112, he also took time out to play the ARP Odyssey on the album’s timeless intro and washes of mellotron on Tears.