Devious Design

I loath Stephanie Meyers “Twilight” books. And the movies. And the fact that they’re so undeservingly popular right now. (And the fact that this weekend the midnight showing of “New Moon” beat the Harry Potter’s opening night record…)

However, anything “Twilight” that isn’t directly related to the plot about mopey teenagers and sparkling vampires (don’t even get me started on my vampire rant) is pretty darn good. I’m talking about the soundtrack, the online marketing campaign, the brand – the whole franchise.

The Soundtrack

The soundtrack is full of really good indie rock musicians. But it bothers me to no end that Radiohead’s Thom Yorke wrote a song for the “New Moon” soundtrack. My only hope is that it will introduce all the young and impressionable listeners to some quality music. Hopefully they’ll at least listen to Yorke’s “The Eraser” or Radiohead’s “In Rainbows,” although I highly doubt a 12-year-old girl would find any of the tracks on “Kid A” very appealing.

Here’s the “Twilight” soundtrack:

1. Supermassive Black Hole (Muse)
2. Decode (Paramore)
3. Full Moon (The Black Ghosts)
4. Leave Out All The Rest (Linkin Park)
5. Spotlight (Twilight Mix) (MuteMath)
6. Go All The Way(Into The Twilight) (Perry Farrell)
7. Tremble For My Beloved (Collective Soul)
8. I Caught Myself (Paramore)
9. Eyes On Fire (Blue Foundation)
10. Never Think (Rob Pattinson)
11. Flightless Bird, American Mouth (Iron & Wine)
12. Bella’s Lullaby (Carter Burwell)

And the “New Moon” soundtrack:

1. Meet Me On The Equinox (Death Cab For Cutie)
2. Friends (Band Of Skulls)
3. Hearing Damage (Thom Yorke)
4. Possibility (Lykke Li)
5. A White Demon Love Song (The Killers)
6. Satellite Heart (Anya Marina)
7. I Belong To You (New Moon) (Muse)
8. Roslyn (Bon Iver and St. Vincent)
9. Done All Wrong (Black Rebel Motorcycle Club)
10. Monsters (Hurricane Bells)
11. The Violet Hour (Sea Wolf)
12. Shooting The Moon (OK Go)
13. Slow Life (Grizzly Bear)
14. No Sound But The Wind (Editors)
15. New Moon (The Meadow) (Alexandre Desplat)

The Online Marketing Campaign

Summit Entertainment exercised almost every online outlet to market “New Moon.” Its use of Twitter and iPhone apps were especially effective. A few of the actors also had very vocal Twitter accounts.

@Twilight – Twilight by Summit Entertainment
@Peter Facinelli – Dr. Carlisle Cullen
@BillyBurke – Chief Swan
@Ashley Greene – Alice Cullen

Facinelli and Burke also release their own iPhone App – which is kind of cool if you care about any of this.

The Brand

The “Twilight” brand is really well developed. The main font they use, “Zephyr,” was a great choice. It’s simultaneously cute and dark/edgy, which really fits the whole “Twilight” philosophy of taking scary, sex-infused things like vampires and watering them down to sparkly vegitarians that appeal to 10-year-old females. “Zephyr” is a perfect font for that.

The rest of the branding does the same thing: It takes images of cute teenagers, desaturates the images and puts a dark, hazy cloud behind them. “Look! We successfully made these kids look spooky and approachable at the same time! YES!”

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It’s just sad that all this cool stuff came from a couple of incredibly poorly written books with a flaccid storyline and boring, whiny, undeveloped characters.

I love the band Tool – I just need to throw that out there. They’re angry, witty, heavy, artistic and legitimately good musicians. And they have awesome album artwork. For example, their last two albums, 10,000 Days and Lateralus, featured Alex Grey‘s work, and before that, Aenima featured the work of Cam de Leon. But the coolest part about all of their more recent albums is the packaging, because, honestly, cool packaging is the only reason I’ll buy a CD. If  it has boring packaging I’ll find another means to satisfy my music fix. So kudos to Adam Jones for being the coolest guitarist/art director/special effects guy ever.

The packaging for 10,000 Days is very cool, with stereoscopic lenses so you can see all the artwork in 3D. Aenima has a lenticular cover, so the images change as you move the case around. Plus this album is great anyway. Good for driving during rush hour.

Here are a few more of my favorite album artwork:

1. Nine Inch Nails – Year Zero
I’m actually not a huge fan of the cover – it strikes me as boring and forgettable (in fact, I had Google it to remember what the cover even looked like – it’s the disk itself that’s the cool part. You open the CD and it’s black, but after it warms up a bit while it’s playing, you pop it out and suddenly it’s white. It’s an interesting idea, I just wish the rest of the packaging matched it in coolness.

2. The Beatles – Revolver
I love this album. And the artwork. Klaus Voormann. I love line drawings. That and the additional collage bits work very well together, and it’s a style that’s been repeated quite a bit since 1966 when Revolver was released, both with parodies and legitimate tributes, a few of which can be found here: http://www.amiright.com/album-covers/beatles-revolver-parodies/.

3. Radiohead – In Rainbows
This is another album with fun packaging. It was originally released with a “name your own price” digital download, and then the hard copy was released in January 2008. Stanley Donwood designed the artwork, and I love the unconventional typography and use of color. Plus it came with a bunch of stickers so you can design it yourself – at least a bit.

That’s all I have for now, and I still haven’t figured out how to get my images to show up. (Help!)

Later I’ll chat about these, my honorable mentions for best album art:

Thom Yorke – The Eraser
Explosions In The Sky – The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place
Norah Jones – Not Too Late
Deftones – White Pony
Radiohead – Hail To The Thief
Bright Eyes – Casadaga

And tune in next time for: Spiffy logo designs