I have to admit I don't really see the hate for Hugh Syme. The only time he really messed up was around the time of DT12 with the whole clipped thing on the cover and the guitar in the booklet, as well as the kind of slapped together look of Distant Memories' main piece. The artwork for ADToE and D/T was minimalistic, yet powerful and I always loved how Hugh provides all those extra artpieces for the songs themselves. Black Clouds is also easily my favourite DT album art, it's got that proggy collage thing going on but does it with more polish than on Awake and Images. I also don't think there's anything particularly wrong with him using stock images to compose the picture. It's been part of his signature stye and it's not like it's easy to make it look like it does (not to mention, that's sort of what stock images are for). With stuff like This Godless Endeavor, Moving Pictures and Parallels, he manages to nail the atmosphere of the album in question.
I love most of what Hugh’s done for Rush, and to a lesser degree for some other bands. In fact, that’s one of the things I enjoyed doing myself - creating images that are *realistically* photo-composited (the elements fit in well enough so that they look like they should be there - not just tossed in there using a copy and paste tool). I did the same thing for MP’s bass drum heads for the Albino Monster, as well as the Black Clouds and Silver Anniversary poster/shirt image. So I don’t have a problem with the general style that Hugh’s become known for.
But it seems with DT and perhaps other artists not named Rush, he’s gotten somewhat sloppy. Perhaps it’s a case of him having taken on too much work, since he also does imagery in the commercial world that probably have heavy deadlines and quick turnarounds, but at least a decent portion of what he’s been churning out these days is not of the quality that his album art from the 90s and earlier is.
To pick apart what he’s done for DT:
The original cover for 8v was poor with purple lines instead of steel cables holding up the balls - it only seems after there was an uproar from the fans after the image was first shared publicly that this was remedied; even then, the ball in motion on the far right still doesn't line up properly with the other balls. Additionally, the undersea image is far from photorealistic, and to a lesser degree, neither is the monolith/domino scene although you get the impression that both should be, considering the other artwork.
The cover of SC certainly is chaotic, but many of the traffic ramps are scaled to all sorts of weird sizes and angles that really don’t match up. Also, the fact that he once again used a black bar for the text after having just done so on the 8v cover just seemed like a poor choice. When I designed the Chaos in Motion tour book, I put the image in a full black frame so it was at least a bit more different than what was on 8v.
The cover for BCaSL has a majesty symbol “stain” on the floor that makes no real sense and the perspective is off (this bugged me so much that it was the first thing I focused on for the Black Clouds and Silver Anniversary image), the mouse has no shadow, and the elephant isn’t photorealistic.
While it doesn’t really bother me, I know a lot of people took issue with Hugh using the unicycle guy from stock imagery on the ADToE cover, especially since the same basic image was used on another band's album cover a few years earlier. However, I do get why he used the stock image in this case, since trying to find a unicycling clown to do a photoshoot with would probably be cost prohibitive. The thing that bugs me is once again the manner that the majesty symbol was added - putting it on the tail of the plane makes perfect sense, but the way he did it looked like it was an afterthought, as opposed to incorporating it in a more clever design like real airlines have been doing.
Not a big fan of the cover art for L@LP. Besides recycling the unicycle clown, the airplane looks pretty fake.
Personally, I like the cover art for the s/t album. But the fact that he got sloppy with the cover image being cut like that in the faded area lessens his reputation.
And as for d/t, it’s certainly not my favorite cover. I agree that I don’t like that he used stock imagery for the whole thing. Again, I get why he used stock art for the robotic hand, but he could’ve shot the skull himself. And once again, the addition of the majesty symbol seems like an afterthought.
With all that being said, I didn’t have a problem with the BtFW cover image, although I would’ve preferred a photorealistic image instead of a simple line drawing. I like the combining of the imagery from SFaM and d/t for the cover of DM. And I do like a lot of the artwork that he did for the insides of the CD booklets, although I must confess that I don’t remember any of them nearly as well as I do the one for 8v and previous DT CDs - I’m sure there are some flaws in some of them, but nothing that stands out.
In the end, I think he’s an awesome artist with great ideas. It’s just that the execution of those ideas is lacking. Am I being a nit-pick? Perhaps, but given his previous work (and therefore his abilities) as well as the fact that I never had the same negative reaction with what he's done for Rush in recent years, and I want to see the best artwork for my favorite band (DT), I don't think I'm being unreasonable in taking issue with these things.
Topic: DT15: A View From The Top Of The World (Timeline for DT15) (Read 351584 times)