SAN FRANCISCO, CA. & LONDON, UK. (Top40 Charts/ Turner Duckworth) - Turner Duckworth announces a first for Metallica. During a career that has spanned over twenty years at the top of the music industry,
Metallica has earned a shelf full of Grammy music awards. But this year sees their first nomination for packaging design. For their latest release, "Death Magnetic," the band looked outside the music industry for branding and package design, and chose to work with Turner Duckworth, a leading consumer brand identity design company with studios in San Francisco and London. The firm designed a complete identity for the
Metallica album including logos, type treatments, color palettes, packaging and special editions.
A truly "graphic" design
The collaboration resulted in a design that caused heated debate on the blogs. The band chose to release the cover art before any music was available, and so with no new songs to discuss the fans analysed the design in great detail. The image, a white coffin in a grave surrounded by a magnetic field, is on one hand a direct visualization of the album's title: "Death Magnetic," but it can be seen in other ways, and one interpretation is highly explicit. "Ambiguity is a good thing when it comes to album covers. Like the music itself, an effective image should be highly memorable, but open to different interpretations. The image is not just about death, it's about life too," said Bruce Duckworth, Partner at Turner Duckworth.
A deliberate violation
Another controversial aspect of the design is the die-cut grave that punches through the book of lyrics. Some fans have complained about this apparently disrespectful design treatment, but it was entirely intentional. James Hetfield, the band's lead singer, writes the lyrics but has mixed feelings about printing them. "He feels that they shouldn't be precious. I wasn't sure how he'd react when he saw his lyrics butchered by the die cut, but he loved the idea immediately. Death doesn't fit tidily into life, so the grave deliberately violated the images and lyrics in the booklet," said David Turner, Partner at Turner Duckworth.
A first for Turner Duckworth
Turner Duckworth is better known for its work for brands like Coca-Cola, Amazon.com and Motorola. The firm has won many international design awards including the first ever Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions for design, but this is their first foray into the music industry. "We're delighted and honored to get this nomination," said David Turner.
