(What happened to...) Hugh Syme

[ytsejam58]

I wanted to open up this discussion because I am a long time fan of Hugh Symes art. From Rush to 2005-2013 Dream Theater to Flying Colors and plenty of other bands, probably more than you know.
For the best of album covers though there are some bad eggs. Mostly those he did for Megadeth, very disturbing. And Aerosmith's Get a Grip. Straight up Cow tits.
But anyway! Discussion 1 is really, what are some of your favorite Syme cover arts or inner sleeve art?
Discussion 2 is... What happened to him? He did Flying Colors Second Nature and then.... nothing. I could have sworn he did Neal Morse's Grand Experiment but there is no documentation on that. He was also a long running designer for Dream Theater but was noticeably absent on The Astonishing.

[Progmetty]

Youthanasia's cover was pretty great. Whenever I see it I gotta stare at it for a while.

[ytsejam58]

I was thinking more of along the lines of "The World Needs a Hero."
The inner sleeve for Roll the Bones is straight up an elephant butt. I actually found it humorous

[Eldomm]

My favorite has always been Grace Under Pressure...

[ytsejam58]

Very cool cover. I love the multiple meanings of Moving Pictures depicted on the cover of Moving Pictures. Very clever

[Progmetty]

I was thinking more of along the lines of "The World Needs a Hero."

The one with Vic crawling out of Mustaine's bleeding corpse? That one is cool but it's nowhere are good as Youthanasia cover IMHO.

[Kotowboy]

His work for Dream Theater was getting lazier and lazier to the point where mistakes were very visible on his "work".

[Setlist Scotty]

Grace Under Pressure and Moving Pictures are probably 2 of my favorites done by him. Really, it's amazing to see how many different artists he's worked with, and how many different album covers he is responsible for.

However, I gotta agree with Kotowboy in that he really seems to have gotten lazy or at least doesn't pay attention to the details like he used to. Perhaps this is because of the use/ease of Photoshop, taking on too much work, getting older or something else. But the quality of his artwork isn't what it used to be. Ideas are stellar, but the execution of them is lacking, especially on most of DT's albums.

As for why he's not involved with The Astonishing, I asked JP that, and his response was because the 3D modeling and stuff is not what Hugh does. If he did, you can be sure that he'd have done the artwork for TA, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them use Hugh again on the next album.

Not to get off topic, but JP did say that they originally had gotten in contact with some Russian artist (didn't mention his name), but that the ideas he submitted to the band were too dark for what they were going for, and so they kept looking, and discovered Jie Ma.

[Kotowboy]

I hope they don't default to Syme on DT14.

[Lowdz]

Grace Under Pressure is a work of art and my favourite cover ever. At the end of the 80s/early 90s he was the go to guy for the hair bands. Most were just lazy - a textured background with a logo once he'd hit gold with Whitesnake's 1987.

Youthanasia is cool, and I don't mind Roll The Bones. His DT stuff is adequate but lazy. The unicycle guy was unforgivable.

[Mebert78]

Love Syme's work.  I have a poster of Queensr˙che's Hear in the Now Frontier in my cubicle at work, as well as a poster of two ants carrying a bullet from DT's Systematic Chaos album.  Even though his work often has small issues, I still love it.  I remember I asked for for a Syme print many years ago for Christmas, and my mom called a phone number I found somewhere and he answered himself!  The price was too high though, lol.

[Mosh]

He would probably work well acting as a sort of advisor or art director, with someone else actually executing is ideas.

[KevShmev]

Count me among those who considers Grace Under Pressure one of Syme's/Rush's best album covers.  It captures the cold feeling of that record perfectly.

[skydivingninja]

His stuff with DT after Octavarium is pretty bad. Clockwork Angels was pretty embarrassing too. I could've created at least the background in a minute in photoshop (I made fancy looking clouds a lot in high school just to play around with the program). So yeah, he definitely seems to have lost his touch lately.

[ytsejam58]

I hate the vinyl cover of Clockwork Angels. Why change it? I actually liked the cover of the Caravan/BU2B single and used it a lot with school graphic design projects. Oh, but the vinyl version, instead of clouds he used Raindrops and I think it doesn't fit the cover at all. One of the reasons why I'm a little hesitant about getting that one on vinyl.

[Setlist Scotty]

His stuff with DT after Octavarium is pretty bad. Clockwork Angels was pretty embarrassing too. I could've created at least the background in a minute in photoshop (I made fancy looking clouds a lot in high school just to play around with the program). So yeah, he definitely seems to have lost his touch lately.

In all honesty, I don't necessarily think you can blame the CA cover art strictly on Hugh - Neil signs off on all that stuff, and I'd imagine that Neil was going for a more simple/straight forward cover, otherwise Hugh could've come up with something more elaborate like the artwork found in the booklet. Probably not unlike the idea they went with for the HYF album cover, or even Counterparts for that matter - neither of which I'm overly fond of.

As for your comment about his work with DT after 8v, I'd argue that even his work on 8v was far from stellar. The underwater scene is amateur, the dominos aren't photorealistic either, and had the fans not made a big stink about the cover art when it was first released, the balls would've been hanging on purple strings (for lack of a better word) instead of the steel cables they were changed to, never mind that the height/angle of the swinging ball is still wrong. So for the most part, none of Hugh's artwork for DT has been executed as well as it could or should have been.

[KevShmev]

His stuff with DT after Octavarium is pretty bad. Clockwork Angels was pretty embarrassing too. I could've created at least the background in a minute in photoshop (I made fancy looking clouds a lot in high school just to play around with the program). So yeah, he definitely seems to have lost his touch lately.

Woah, welcome back!! 

[skydivingninja]

His stuff with DT after Octavarium is pretty bad. Clockwork Angels was pretty embarrassing too. I could've created at least the background in a minute in photoshop (I made fancy looking clouds a lot in high school just to play around with the program). So yeah, he definitely seems to have lost his touch lately.

In all honesty, I don't necessarily think you can blame the CA cover art strictly on Hugh - Neil signs off on all that stuff, and I'd imagine that Neil was going for a more simple/straight forward cover, otherwise Hugh could've come up with something more elaborate like the artwork found in the booklet. Probably not unlike the idea they went with for the HYF album cover, or even Counterparts for that matter - neither of which I'm overly fond of.

As for your comment about his work with DT after 8v, I'd argue that even his work on 8v was far from stellar. The underwater scene is amateur, the dominos aren't photorealistic either, and had the fans not made a big stink about the cover art when it was first released, the balls would've been hanging on purple strings (for lack of a better word) instead of the steel cables they were changed to, never mind that the height/angle of the swinging ball is still wrong. So for the most part, none of Hugh's artwork for DT has been executed as well as it could or should have been.

You can't blame CA just on him, true, but it still looks like a mess. Looking at the original Caravan/BU2B single, that would've been a pretty good cover. Even the Headlong Flight single cover would've been good. Both aren't too busy.

I know there are issues with Octavarium cover art, but it's very distinct and iconic, at least to me, compared to the mediocrity of everything afterwards.

His stuff with DT after Octavarium is pretty bad. Clockwork Angels was pretty embarrassing too. I could've created at least the background in a minute in photoshop (I made fancy looking clouds a lot in high school just to play around with the program). So yeah, he definitely seems to have lost his touch lately.

Woah, welcome back!! 

Thanks! Haven't been by in a while (partly because of the last two DT albums) and figured I'd see what has happening. Kinda weird to see threads from 2012/2013 still kicking over here.

[Phoenix87x]

Grace under pressure 

[IDontNotDoThings]

The Test For Echo cover is pretty cool. 

[splent]

I love the Signals art.

[ytsejam58]

Everytime I see a tangle of highways now all I can think of is Systematic Chaos XD

But yeah, I really didn't care for the Black Clouds and Silver Linings cover, Dream Theater at first seemed Way too simplistic but I've grown to love it. It actually looks really cool on vinyl. The cover of A Dramatic Turn of Events with the guy on the unicycle looked A LOT like another band's album cover, but I can't remember the name of the band or the album.
It's like if someone crossed Incubus' "If not now, When?" with Circus Maximus "The 1st Chapter"
Actually, I just found this site https://www.metalsucks.net/2011/08/08/dream-theater-used-clip-art-for-their-album-cover/ and it shows that it's the same yellow shirt... it's clip art XD
Though he wrongly blames Dream Theater for this mistake when it has nothing to do with them, it's Hugh Syme.

Either way. Is album covers are very Iconic.

[ytserush]

I wanted to open up this discussion because I am a long time fan of Hugh Symes art. From Rush to 2005-2013 Dream Theater to Flying Colors and plenty of other bands, probably more than you know.
For the best of album covers though there are some bad eggs. Mostly those he did for Megadeth, very disturbing. And Aerosmith's Get a Grip. Straight up Cow tits.
But anyway! Discussion 1 is really, what are some of your favorite Syme cover arts or inner sleeve art?
Discussion 2 is... What happened to him? He did Flying Colors Second Nature and then.... nothing. I could have sworn he did Neal Morse's Grand Experiment but there is no documentation on that. He was also a long running designer for Dream Theater but was noticeably absent on The Astonishing.

He was may have been working on his book. The Art of Rush

https://www.rushbackstage.com/rushbackstage/winter-sale/art-of-rush-regular-edition.html

[Kotowboy]

" The Art of Rush ? More Like....The Art of Rushing it out for that easy paycheque...."

[LudwigVan]

I love most of what Hipgnosis did more than the Hugh Syme stuff. Some of his Rush album covers are pretty iconic though.

[RodrigoAltaf]

Resurrecting this topic to say that I'll be interviewing Hugh Syme next week. Questions for him?

[Max Kuehnau]

Resurrecting this topic to say that I'll be interviewing Hugh Syme next week. Questions for him?

yes: Where do you get the ideas for your album artwork from? (from the album title the bands mention to you or from something else)

[DoctorAction]

I'm totally indifferent to most of his work, with some exceptions.

The exceptions tend non-photographic designs.
.

[Stadler]

Where can I buy prints of your work (I love the cover of p/g as much as I don't care for the music).

[Adami]

Resurrecting this topic to say that I'll be interviewing Hugh Syme next week. Questions for him?

yes: Where do you get the ideas for your album artwork from?

Google image search, I’d imagine.

[Max Kuehnau]

Resurrecting this topic to say that I'll be interviewing Hugh Syme next week. Questions for him?

yes: Where do you get the ideas for your album artwork from?

Google image search, I’d imagine.

trying to be sarcastic are we?

[The Walrus]

I mean, I was gonna say 'stock photos' so 

[Adami]

Resurrecting this topic to say that I'll be interviewing Hugh Syme next week. Questions for him?

yes: Where do you get the ideas for your album artwork from?

Google image search, I’d imagine.

trying to be sarcastic are we?

Only in specificity. Not my overall point.

[Northern Lion]

What went through his mind when a likeness of his D/T image ended up in the NYT?  At least, I think I have the story right.

Also, I love his D/T cover art by the way, so you can tell him it's really cool.

[Peter Mc]

I’m curious as to whether there’s different tiers in terms of costs for album covers. Would a completely original piece cost more than one made up of existing stock images or is just a set rate to do an album cover irrespective of how it is created?

DT fans always criticise him for using existing stock images but maybe that’s all they’re paying for.