If you wish to design a bestselling pop album
cover, the method is simple: Spend a lot of money on a cryptic photograph or
illustration and illegible modern typography (or illegible lyrics in the star's
handwriting). To produce the cover of a Balkan album, for which the budget may
be somewhat more constrained, more creative techniques historically were
required.
Look, Ma, No Hands!
Illustrators who have trouble with faces or hands may simply omit them. These
album covers all dispense with the bourgeois affectation of facial features.
They also depict three well-known schools of hand illustration: the Amputee
School, left (note also the lack of feet); the Rectangular school, center, in
which a simple straightedge substitutes for the ability to draw; and the
Shapeless Blob school, right.
Block That Face!
If, like crooner Zvonko Bogdan, you have a face that only a Serbian mother could
love, put it on the cover and your album will go zlatna (gold). If, like
Ciga Despotovic, you can't afford a copy of Photoshop, a pair of scissors and a
felt pen are all you need to create stunning special effects.
It's a Band! No, It's a Fungus!
Stuck for a concept? How about an illustration of subterranean fungi? It
worked for Pecurka, a mid-'70s L.A. band whose name, for reasons best known to
its members, meant "mushroom" in Serbo-Croatian.
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