Favorite Dream Theater Studio Album Artwork?

[goo-goo]

So what's your favorite artwork from the DT studio cataloge?

Mine would be:
-Train of Thought
-Falling into Infinity
-Systematic Chaos
-Six Degrees

[JayOctavarium]

FIRST!


SFAM
TOT
8VRM

[Evai]

ALL OF THEM. Because you let us vote for all.

But at a push, Systematic chaos

[The Walrus]

I love 6D's art so much I blew it up and have a big ol' poster of it hanging on my dining room wall. So, that one. Awake is a very close second.

I also really enjoy the Score cover for some reason, but that's a live one...

[TheCountOfNYC]

ACoS, SFaM, 8vm, TA

[MirrorMask]

Awake, Scenes and Train.

[Ninjabait]

In order, with my thoughts:

01. Scenes from a Memory (honestly, one of my favorite album artworks of all time; this could literally stand on its own as a piece of art without the concept of the album)
02. Octavarium (ties very nicely into the concept of the album, and looks nice to boot)
03. A Dramatic Turn of Events (apparently I'm one of the only people in the world who actually really likes this artwork; illustrates the title very well, and creates an atmosphere of drama and "Romantic grandness" (I literally could not think of a better term) that adds to the music of the album)
04. Train of Thought (the artwork really adds to the atmosphere of the album, if you ask me)
05. The Astonishng (not the most "exciting" artwork, but it looks the most polished and sets the stage for the album nicely)
06. Systematic Chaos (I like the concept a lot, but I just like some others more than it)
07. Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence (fits the concept well, but it's a bit too minimalist for my tastes)
08. Dream Theater (looks nice, but same problem as SDoIT; I like how "sleek" it looks)
09. Falling Into Infinity (eh, could be better, could be worse)
10. Images & Words (eh, it's alright, the flaming heart looks so out of place and detracts from the artwork as a whole)
11. A Change of Seasons (would be higher, but something just seems...off about it somehow)
12. Awake (it's a bit of a jumbled mess, I get that the stuff on the cover is linked to the songs, but it just doesn't work for me)
13. Black Clouds & Silver Linings (same as Awake, but without the obvious parallels to the songs)
14. When Dream And Day Unite (no)

[DT2003]

Hard to pick between Awake and Train of Thought, but Awake was my initial thought so I’ll stick with that.

[pg1067]

I went with Systematic Chaos, which is ironic since it's right at the bottom in terms of the music.

That said, there's nothing that stands out as being heads and shoulders above the rest.  I also considered I&W, Awake, SFAM, TOT and 8VA.  Honorable mention to ACOS, but mostly because I really like that shade of blue.

[Madman Shepherd]

One thing I've never really liked about Dream Theater: their album art. 

None of them have ever really stood out or looked particularly cool but if pressed I would have to say A Dramatic Turn of Events. 

I hated the name when it was unveiled but now I'm indifferent to it.  The cover art, however, was bold. So many of Dream Theater's albums had dark cover art and ADTOE was the "lightest."  It made me wonder what the hell was up their sleeve.  It turned out to be my favorite album of theirs and in many ways signified a new beginning.  It's funny because I love the dark side of DT the most.  I love the heavy stuff.  Systematic Chaos is my second favorite album but I was sick of the dark covers. 

Second would probably be A Change of Seasons although the end result to not live up to the awesomeness of the concept.  In fact, I didn't realize the kid was actually in the snow for maybe a year until I looked at the cover art again.  I figured it was a white sand beach.  The back cover art is a cool compliment except it looks like the old guy is hanging out on a northeast rocky shore beach.  Would have been much cooler if it was clear the kid was in the snow and the old guy was on a beach.  I even went back to look at it to see if it should have been glaringly obvious but it wasn't even years after I figured out what it is.

I do love DT12 also.  Another bold move.

Special mention goes to the On the Backs of Angels single cover



Also special mentions goes to the cover songs' single covers from Black Clouds.  Check those out on google images if you haven't seen them. 

[Sycsa]

I don’t particularly care for any of them, I think DT has a problem when it comes to artworks. Most of them have a cheap, obviously-made-in-Photoshop-like quality, others remind me of ‘90s video games (with TA being the latest culprit here).

I&W, Awake, and ACoS look woefully tasteless to me.

SDoIT looks more like a Limp Bizkit cover, along with that early 2000s “sk8er” feel.

Octavarium has that mistake where the swinging ball is on a shorter string than the rest. You don’t need to have OCD to have that one bother ya. Oh, and that low-res grass straight outta Need For Speed 2.

ADToE was stolen from Circus Maximus’ The 1st Chapter. The clown even has the same wrinkles on his shirt! Why though?

DT12 had that problem with that black artifact in the corner, which I still cannot unsee for some reason (even though it was fixed, and it ended up being a nice, albeit simplistic cover). I have it on T-shirt and it looks great in that context.

Had you asked this a few years ago, I would have probably gone with SFaM (I even had it as my desktop wallpaper for a while), but since then I realized what a huge cliché it is (face composed of smaller images, along with the black+orange color palette), and I don’t really like it anymore.

I guess I’ll take FII, it’s quite an interesting one. If only the font weren’t wrong...

[TAC]

I'd go with 6 D's.

[KevShmev]

As cool as the Scenes cover is, it's such a ripoff of Marillion's Brave that I cannot put it in the top 3.

Top 3:

1. Awake
2. Falling into Infinity
3. The Astonishing

[Renzo]

Images and Words.

[MirrorMask]

ADToE was stolen from Circus Maximus’ The 1st Chapter. The clown even has the same wrinkles on his shirt! Why though?

Because it's a stock image avalaible to anyone. It wasn't "stolen" as in "uh, cool, CM used it, let's use it too", it was just there in the public domain and Hugh Syme used it not bothering to find out if it was already used or not.

[Logain Ablar]

This is totally random, but the Octavarium artwork always reminds me of the land battle scenes in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace every time I see it.



It's sort of a put-off.. 

[MirrorMask]

Those giant balls swinging would have helped a lot in the battle! 

[Sycsa]

This is totally random, but the Octavarium artwork always reminds me of the land battle scenes in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace every time I see it.



It's sort of a put-off.. 

Yeah, it's that bad '90s CGI effect.

[don_waka]

Six Degrees, Awake, SFAM 

[pg1067]

Those giant balls swinging would have helped a lot in the battle! 

MP:  Usea da booma John John!
JP:  What?  Mesa (Boogie) no have a booma!
JM:  Steady.  Steady.
JR:  Uh oh.  Big boomas!
JLB:  Dis is nutsen!

[Evai]

This is totally random, but the Octavarium artwork always reminds me of the land battle scenes in Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace every time I see it.



It's sort of a put-off.. 

Woah! New nuggets are still being found in Octavarium to this day! I think this one connects itself to Episode 1 being like poetry; it rhymes.

[Cool Chris]

Are we talking the whole booklet, or just the cover art?

Either way, and especially if we are considering the whole booklet, ToT by a lunar mile.

[ZirconBlue]

As cool as the Scenes cover is, it's such a ripoff of Marillion's Brave that I cannot put it in the top 3.

It is in no way a "rip off" of Brave.  Dave McKean created the artwork based on his own work:  the cover for the Sandman Brief Lives graphic novel.  That collection came out in 1994.  And the resemblance is only superficial, anyway.

[The Walrus]

Are we talking the whole booklet, or just the cover art?

Either way, and especially if we are considering the whole booklet, ToT by a lunar mile.

If we count the entire booklet, I'm giving it to Octavarium just for the page with the stop sign and octopus on the ocean floor. That is so cool.

[wolfking]

FIRST!


SFAM
TOT
8VRM

I think these three for sure.

[fadetoblackdude7]

Octavarium by a landslide. So instantly recognizable and iconic.

But I have to mention I love how SC and BC&SL oppose/compliment each other. SC is chaotic and has hot colors while BC&SL is cool and easy on the eye.

[Mladen]

Awake, FII, Octavarium

[MirrorMask]

Has time been kind on the cover, or do I grossly misremember the vast outcry against Octavarium's cover when it was releaased? to the point that Mike Portnoy had to defend themselves on his forum pointing out how many classic albums covers were kinda meh...

[Dave_Manchester]

Tough choice between Train of Thought and Octavarium, but in the end I went with Octavarium. Just a very cool image, and I love the colours.

By the way, I don't remember if it was on this forum or elsewhere, but before ADTOE was released there was a kind of informal competition to come up with artwork for the album. Some of those entries were really impressive and creative (and sometimes funny - one was a plain white cover with 'Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn Of Events' written on it and a picture of a 4/4 time signature). You can search Google images for them (something like 'A Dramatic Turn of Events cover art'). My favourite was the pocket watch falling into the ocean. Loved that one, very striking. Also the one with the giraffes in water. Weird and surreal, but cool to look at.

[noxon]

Has time been kind on the cover, or do I grossly misremember the vast outcry against Octavarium's cover when it was releaased? to the point that Mike Portnoy had to defend themselves on his forum pointing out how many classic albums covers were kinda meh...

The problem was, there were so many errors in the cover when it was first shown, that it felt lazy and unfinished. This was the outcry you're thinking off. The artwork was fixed.

https://dreamtheater.club/discography/studio-albums/octavarium/

[The Walrus]

Having a hard time finding the differences in the original vs. the finished artwork. I remember DT12 having a glaring issue with the shadow before it was fixed, but Octavarium looks the same to me. At the bottom it shows the original but it's so small I can't tell.

[gzarruk]

I really really like the DT12 cover. Don't get why many people dislike it.

[Evai]

Yeah I have the two Octavarium covers up side by side and I can't tell a single difference

[fadetoblackdude7]

Only difference I could find is that the strings go into the balls without the rings attaching them. Also, the swinging ball is off center from the string.

[Dave_Manchester]

I really really like the DT12 cover. Don't get why many people dislike it.

I love it too, it would be in the number 3 spot for me if I were ranking them. Simple but beautiful.