When creating metal album art it is assumed artist will use more black/red than light red/beige. All the darkness, blood and monsters are known as the conventions of metal but taking a closer look to the colour palettes of famous metal albums gives a slight different result. I took some classic metal albums from Black Sabbath, Judas Priest and Metallica and downshifted their famous albums colour palettes to the minimum just to see what colours are used mostly. I also took some surprises from more gory bands like Cannibal Corpse to point out how a zombie eaten its way back to life can be expressed in a visually harmonic way.
I’m not giving a complete colour theory lecture here but you should all check out colour theories and studies by Goethe, Itten and Albers. Also knowing a bit about warm and cold, complementary colours, colour wheels and colour mixing wont hurt you. For example this article gives you a great idea how important choosing a colour can be: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-designers-part-1-the-meaning-of-color/
Designers often use colour schemes or palettes to help themselves creating visually more pleasing design. Most this worlds most biggest companies only have 1 to 4 colours in their visual identity. There are plenty online services to help you create nice colour palettes such as http://www.colourlovers.com/palettes, https://kuler.adobe.com, http://www.degraeve.com/color-palette and http://colorschemedesigner.com/.
So next time when you are designing album artwork or an invitation to wedding, grab your copy of Venom’s At War With Satan and see what you can come up with…
Article by Pete Alander bandmill.net – Copyright 2013 © Heavy Music Artwork.
