I have always loved album covers.  The artwork, the liner notes, everything about it was magical to me and although many dismissed it as just packaging, to me it was a visual extension of the recorded music that it held.  In fact, in some cases it enhanced the music.  On Figment, album cover art is equally if not more important, because there is NO recorded music involved.  In fact, many might say that the artwork is everything.  I would contest that because I feel the band’s back story and song titles are also important, but I can’t fight the fact that the artwork is the first thing that grabs you when you see a fake band on Figment.

A lot of Figment users seem to feel the same way and have clearly poured a lot of time into creating covers that not only grab your attention, but really communicate what they envision is the “sound” of their fake band.  To me, that’s the true test of great cover art, does it communicate with one look what a listener might hear on the vinyl or CD inside?  It’s with that in mind that we’ve decided to launch an annual Figment Album Cover Contest.

As you may know, we’ve had several theme-related contests (i.e.  Holiday Album Contest) where album cover art was considered in the voting, but in this case the artwork will be the primary focus of the contest and it will not be limited to any one theme.  In short, we’re asking you to pull out all the stops and really flex your design chops with this one.

So who will be judging this contest?  The initial round of judging will be done by the Figment staff who will pick the Top 10 covers that they think merit being considered by our special guest judge.  Who is our guest judge?  Well, we’re thrilled to say it’s well known album cover designer, John Coulthart.  John has designed album covers for such bands as Cradle of Filth and Hawkwind as well as cover design and illustrations for a host of horror and sci-fi related books and graphic novels.

So what do you get for winning?  Well, beyond just bragging rights, we thought we’d arm the winner with everything they would need to be a top album cover designer.

The first thing would be a copy of the premier 3D graphic design software on the market.  So the winner will receive a copy of  Adobe Photoshop CS4-Extended courtesy of Adobe.  That alone is a prize worth $1,000 USD, but it doesn’t end there!

A good designer also needs inspiration, and a strong understanding of the groundbreaking designers that preceded him or her in order to develop their own design esthetic.  What better resource for that then a copy of the book “Reasons to be Cheerful:  The Life and Works of Barney Bubble” by Paul Gorman with a foreward written by Paul Saville.  After all, if you want to be an album designer and you don’t know anything about Barney Bubbles then you need this enlightening read!

And lastly, all the best designers are paid for their work, so why should you be any different?  So we will pay the winner 1,000 pieces of Lucre for his/her winning piece of cover art!!!

So now that you know what’s at stake, what do you need to do to enter?  Here are the basic rules of the contest:

1. You must be a registered Figment user to participate.  If you don’t currently have a Figment account please click here to create one.  This contest is open to Figment users worldwide.

2.  Create a fake band on Figment and release an album with cover art.  You may also release an album by an existing band that you created.  To be considered an album must contain song titles.  Even thought they won’t be the focus of our judging, an album that is released without any song titles it will be disqualified. Once you have released the album or album(s) you want to submit as an entry please post the band and album name as a comment to this post, so that we and other users can check it out.  If you don’t post the band/album name as a comment to this post or your album cover entry won’t be considered.

3.  Any artwork used in the creation of your album cover should either be original or at least one at which you have the permission of the copyright owner to use.  If you do use someone else’s work you need to make it your own by at the very least adding text or something that makes it your own.  Any album designs that are judged as being a copy of an existing work will be disqualified.  We will also disqualify any album cover that is offensive in nature – sexist, racist or hate-based.

4.  The contest will run from Friday, March 6th until Friday, April 3, 2009.  All submissions must be posted by no later than 11:59 pm ET on Friday, April 3rd.

5.  By no later than, Friday, April 10th Figment will select the Top 10 album covers and send them to John Coulthart for his review.  John will look the Top 10 covers over and select the Top 5 – a winner and four runners up.  The winner and runners up will be announced on Friday, April 17, 2009.  The winner will receive a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS4-Extended courtesy of Adobe, a copy of Paul Gorman’s book “Reason to be Cheerful:  The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles and 1,000 pieces of Lucre.  The four runners up will win lucre rewards based on their placement in the Top 5.

Here is a little background on John Coulthart to give you an idea of who will be ultimately judging the 10 finalists:

JOHN COULTHART’s first illustration work was for the Hawkwind album Church of Hawkwind in 1982. Since then his designs and illustrations have appeared on record sleeves, CD and DVD packages for Cradle of Filth, Alan Moore & Tim Perkins, Steven Severin, Fourth World music pioneer Jon Hassell and many others. John is a contributor to Arthur Magazine.

As a comic artist John produced the Lord Horror series ‘Reverbstorm‘ with David Britton for Savoy Books, and received the dubious accolade of having an earlier Savoy title, ‘Hard Core Horror‘ 5, declared obscene in a British court of law. A new graphic work, ‘The Soul‘, is being planned with Alan Moore (From Hell, V for Vendetta). His collection of HP Lovecraft adaptations and illustrations, The Haunter of the Dark and Other Grotesque Visions, was republished in 2006 by Creation Oneiros.

As a book designer and illustrator John continues to work for Savoy Books, and in 2003 designed the acclaimed Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric and Discredited Diseases edited by Jeff VanderMeer and Mark Roberts.

John’s work has been showcased in Rapid Eye, Critical Vision, Clive Barker’s A-Z of Horror, EsoTerra, CNN.com and the Channel 4 television series Banned in the UK. He lives and works in Manchester, England.

Needless to say, John is a Figment Industry Heavyweight and I trust you are as excited as I am to have him take a look at your album covers.  So really pull out all the stops and try to create an album cover design that you think really captures your fake band’s esthetic and “sound.”  We look forward to your submissions.

If you’d like to read the full contest rules you can access them at http://figment.cc/home/accps.fig