Favorite NIN artwork

[Kamelion]

[wizfan]

The artwork on Year Zero and YZR was perhaps the closest we ever got to seeing a depiction of the dystopian future of the concept (the blurry, glitchy ARG videos weren't as eye-popping, as they aimed for raw realism). Most of the art was made by Matthew Santoro, a visual effects artist who used to work at Hydraulx and is now making a movie of his own called Higher Power (it's not the YouTube star of the same name, but their IMDb credits are all mixed up). Hydraulx is a visual effects company founded by The Brothers Strause, who have supervised VFX for countless movies. They recently worked on San Andreas and X-Men Apocalypse. If only their expertise had materialized in an actual Year Zero series/film/any audiovisual medium...

[wizfan]

"Oh, it's an oscilloscope. DUH!"

I like to imagine it's the ropes connecting the balloons with the cameras used to film the "dead Trent" in the Down In It music video, just before they broke. That story never ceases to crack me up.

[Substance242]

This is hard to decide... the most impressive moment was probably "repainting" that Year Zero "America is born again" webpage to "Another version of the truth".

And as for album covers... Year Zero. :-) Or With_Teeth, and that Bleedthrough too... and Hesitation Marks... all good! :-) But on my desktops is still HTDA "last person on earth" or something, love this style. (edit: found on ninwiki, used for "Keep it together" single)

[buckaroo]

on my desktops is still HTDA "last person on earth" or something, love this style. (edit: found on ninwiki, used for "Keep it together" single)

I forgot about that. I love that cover too. That one and the S/T EP are great.

[HWB]

+3 for [With_Teeth] and its era glitch art. Lots of cool stuff, and the album cover has what's probably the best version of the NIN logo.

Worst: NTAE. Hope I don't need to explain the reasons behind this one (spoiler alert: lazy retread)

The NTAE black/white artwork is better than the laziness of Broken and Fixed album covers

[GentlemanLoser]

Yeah this is some awesome artwork. I have the second part of this release and I've always admired the artwork of it. TDS era yielded some awesome visuals for sure and I'd have to agree with you on your point as well.

There is also this version floating around that is just the image itself, sans text.

[Krazy]

The NTAE black/white artwork is better than the laziness of Broken and Fixed album covers

Opnions will vary, but NTAE is a rehash of an approximately 15 year old Still cover. That's pretty much the definition of album cover laziness.

[sweeterthan]

The fragile is my favorite hands down. I have a numbered, signed litho that is my prized possession. I would like to be buried with it.

I love most all the artwork except the stuff that included teeth. That shit freaks me out. It has to do with my personal life experience with dental work. A family member gave me a nin shirt with the teeth art on it and I had to pretend to like it. Inside I was mortified!


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[botley]

Opnions will vary, but NTAE is a rehash of an approximately 15 year old Still cover. That's pretty much the definition of album cover laziness.

You haven't seen the physical album yet, and seem to have made your mind up... pretty much the definition of critical laziness.

[Exocet]

Definitely The Fragile front cover. By David Carlson.
I have no idea what its about. But it works. That random transition, the half NIN logo, Its just weird.
Reminds me of some of the masterpiece Cocteau Twins artwork on 4AD records.

[HWB]

Opnions will vary, but NTAE is a rehash of an approximately 15 year old Still cover. That's pretty much the definition of album cover laziness.

And Broken is just the worst Nine Inch Nails logo with fire behind it (I think?).

The Still covers of NTAE are pretty meh, but I actually really like other covers.

[r_z]

The Broken artwork very much seems like a child of its day, I feel. Maybe they could've gone the PHM route and remaster the artwork as well.

[Khrz]

Yeah, Broken and Fixed get the medal for worst cover. I may not get the point of the NTAE rehashing, but at least I'm fairly certain there's a purpose behind it, a kind of point, even if it's only in the mind of its creators.
Broken's packaging is nice, but every time I put it on my phone I open photoshop up and try to come up with an alternative cover just so I don't even see the thumbnail of the original.
The Downward Spiral and Further Down get my vote for being the most iconic. Personal preference.
The Fragile was a big departure, and even though I'm not a huge fan, it was perfect for the album.
With-Teeth, probably second worst to me. Just too little to chew on with that one, it looks like a DeviantArt fanart. The whole packaging, design, delivery felt lackluster, "here's a disc, the music's on it, we put it between two sheets of cardboard".
Year Zero, well... It's creative, and fitting. I wish they went with the AIR logo instead, or some variation of it.
I love the track artworks for The Slip, and as far as I'm concerned that may be Rob Sheridan's best official work as far as NIN's concerned. But that cover... I'd rather use that one, way more graphically coherent with the rest.
And since I'm a huge Russel Mills fan, I was really happy to see his work make a comeback for Hesitation Marks.

[elevenism]

This is sort of hard to do because the artwork conjures up the sounds of the music and even era of your life.

I think as far as pure artwork goes, it's TDS.

But i fucking LOOOOVED the cover of YZ, which (YZ) was, to me, NIN rebooted, and also had this whole HUGE dystopian narrative throughout that i found delightfully terrifying.
Of course, out of context, the artwork doesn't have the same impact.

and see @Khrz , i LOVE the broken cover, but how much of that is because it was my introduction to NIN and means NIN to me more than any other image?

Can i say the year zero trailer? is that cheating?

[thevoid99]

I think my favorite artwork is definitely Halo 9. I just love how it looked and the background. I'm also fond of the packaging for Closure as I still have the VHS tapes. I'm still waiting for a true official release on DVD/Blu-Ray.

[sick among the pure]

Opnions will vary, but NTAE is a rehash of an approximately 15 year old Still cover. That's pretty much the definition of album cover laziness.

In all locations except for the digital files, the NTAE cover is the black/white broken typewriter style artwork. There are 4 versions which are not the Still artwork.

[clarktrent]

http://i.imgur.com/QyVoWkf.jpg

[Toadflax]

I don't know if I have a favorite, but TDS and Closer would have to be up there.

For anyone interested, we interviewed Russell Mills (the artist behind The Downward Spiral and Hesitation Marks) on the podcast. I also saw his gallery in LA of the HM pieces. Pretty fucking cool to see those in real life.

http://shoutengine.com/UnderneathItA...view-with-1234

[Jordan]

I actually really like the Black NTAE cover. I love that it's a "rehash" of Still. But I only like the black. The others don't fit the album at all which, in my opinion, is really important.

As for my favorite artwork... impossible to decide.

[bwary]

I've always been drawn to this video for its art installation qualities

[Kulerage]

I've always been drawn to this video for its art installation qualities

I really wish that song's music video was finished. Those bits and scraps we got were phenomenal.

[sick among the pure]

I've always been drawn to this video for its art installation qualities

Agreed, probably one of my favorite, if not my very favorite music video. I love macro photography to begin with, but when you splice in some of those beautiful studio shots, you can tell someone went to fucking art school when you see that thing. If I had an assignment to discuss a piece of video work, that would have been it. Which reminds me, do we have the footage that Rob shot for the Tension tour for Into The Void? I know it was a very short clip, but I remember seeing a short video or photo of Rob shooting it (camera on a track, sliding it toward/into/through the vegetation).

[seasonsinthesky]

What the heck is wrong with you people? Does it help to know that the image that makes up the...uh, fire...is actually a chopped up picture of Trent? He chopped himself up and remade himself into angry flames. And this makes even more sense with Fixed.

Uh, what? Is that a real thing? I've never heard that in the last 15 years of fandom. Give me sources! There's nothing on wiki or NINwiki.

[HWB]

What the heck is wrong with you people? Does it help to know that the image that makes up the...uh, fire...is actually a chopped up picture of Trent? He chopped himself up and remade himself into angry flames. And this makes even more sense with Fixed.

I can't even imagine disliking any aspect of the art for these two releases. I have borderline romantic feelings for it.

Hell, if I didn't know how awesome Russell Mills was and how perfect his artwork for Spiral would be, I totally wouldn't've minded if every Nine Inch Nails album cover from Broken on was just a palette swap of that same image.

How can you tell that's what the Broken artwork is without reading up about it? I never knew that, even knowing that I still see just..uh...flames..

[BenAkenobi]

Perhaps Trent never said it, but Broken cover could (potentially!) be inspired by Low - which he admitted was among his favourite records.

[Khrz]

Plus it really totally changes the cover, from "orange blob" to "profound orange blob"... Would be a shame if it had to revert back to being an hideous piece of bad protoshop!

[botley]

Plus it really totally changes the cover, from "orange blob" to "profound orange blob"... Would be a shame if it had to revert back to being an hideous piece of bad protoshop!

Not going to lie: I didn't read the last few posts before scanning over this, and subsequently said to myself "heh, there's nothing profound about Trump."

[Leviathant]

I am having no luck citing my source here. Anyone able to lend a hand? @Leviathant? @Lt. Randazzo ? @allegro? @Malechite? @sheepdean? One of y'all with ungodly NIN-related knowledge?

At some point in the 1990s, I could swear I read something that said that the cover art for Broken (and, in turn, Fixed) was assembled by cutting up a picture of Trent and arranging it so it looked like flames. I cannot find any reference to this online at the moment. Because I was able to find it in the '90s, before I had an internet connection and everything in the world was archived, I think it was an interview from a reasonably major publication, but I could be wrong.

Until now, it never even occurred to me to question the legitimacy of this interview or document (assuming it does actually exist), but given twenty years of perspective (i.e., Impossible Pain) on the weird shit people lie about, since I'm having trouble even finding it, I'm definitely curious. I will feel like a bit of an ass if I've been telling people this for decades (you know, because it comes up super often) and it's been untrue.

I gotta say, Sesqui... that's not ringing any bells. I think the general wisdom on NIN cover art was that none had featured photos of Trent except Pretty Hate Machine - up until With Teeth.

[Halo Infinity]

At some point in the 1990s, I could swear I read something that said that the cover art for Broken (and, in turn, Fixed) was assembled by cutting up a picture of Trent and arranging it so it looked like flames. I cannot find any reference to this online at the moment. Because I was able to find it in the '90s, before I had an internet connection and everything in the world was archived, I think it was an interview from a reasonably major publication, but I could be wrong.

Until now, it never even occurred to me to question the legitimacy of this interview or document (assuming it does actually exist), but given twenty years of perspective (i.e., Impossible Pain) on the weird shit people lie about, since I'm having trouble even finding it, I'm definitely curious. I will feel like a bit of an ass if I've been telling people this for decades (you know, because it comes up super often) and it's been untrue.

I can somehow relate as there were so many things that came and gone with the world of NIN in my mind when digging for facts and overall pieces of information here and there. I totally get what you're saying though as there where times when I found interviews and pictures only to completely forget about them and remember them very vaguely.

If that really is true, and hopefully surfaces if so, that would be pretty cool, considering Burning Bright (Field on Fire) because it could be looked as Trent already being a field on fire, but simply just not realizing it yet. (Perhaps in character and/or real life persona.)

I hate it when that happens too, but it seems bound to happen considering how many things are said about NIN, yet neither confirmed or denied, let known fully known or understood in their absolute context.

As for my favorite NIN artwork, I'd probably have to go with The Fragile, including the entire booklet. I've always seen it as very complimentary eye candy to the actual music itself.

(That is, if I were to just pick one album out of them all as far as artwork goes as of right now.)