Ah… Faux Nostalgia—Part 2!

In a recent effort to update my Facebook profile a bit, I happened to take a really crappy cellphone picture of myself, and then subsequently edited it into something that somehow turned out to be okay, and even more-so, vaguely reminiscent of black and white/sepia-tone album covers from any number of solo musicians in the mid-to-late-'80s.

Trying to pin down exactly what it reminded me of, I at first thought perhaps something from Kenny Loggins, or more specifically Robert Palmer's Riptide. Upon further reflection, however, I later realized it was most visually akin to Bryan Adams' Reckless.

Anyway, I made the offhand comment about the "'80s album cover" similarity after uploading the picture to Facebook, and eventually ended up deciding to go ahead and just complete the process:

^{Click to see detail.}

This was essentially done with much of the same techniques I used in creating the Mystery Solvers Club project, including getting the printed quality just right, beating 20+ years of age into it, and matching the slight perspective of the LP in the photo.

The logo was the first thing to come. To begin with, I actually had my name in the cursive style, with the album title set in type. After a switching of those elements, and placement of a "wouldn't be complete without it" stereotypical '80s polygon, the logo was ready.

Finding a good enough image of an aged-looking LP record still in it's wrapping was pain enough, but then hunting down the proper stickers turned out to be an even bigger task.
For example, as popular as I swear the retro "Nice Price" stickers were, the only high enough quality image I could seem to find of it—if any at all—was this one.

It actually took me a few days, and three different iterations to get it to the point you see in the final image there. I'm pretty sure the only thing that still remains that I didn't have to recreate from scratch on that damned sticker is the typography itself. But I digress.
Opposite this, creating the "singles" sticker was actually pretty fun, and is as much a nod to actual songs of the '80s as the album title itself.

This was another fun project to keep my Photoshop skills fresh. At the very least, I think it turned out okay. To play us out, here's a version of the photo with the original, "un-washed-out by photo-manipulation" neon logo:

^{Click to see detail.}

P.S. Every time I read the album title, Kenny Loggins' "Heartlight" starts up in my head and gets stuck there for a few hours.