Package Design and Art for Hammers of Misfortune Split Double Album Fields & Church of Broken Glass
Right: Church of Broken Glass by butcherBaker aka Son of Witz
Left, purposely upside down: Fields by Sonju Ratler
Concept and direction by John Cobbet
Hammers of Misfortune made a “Split Double Album”, presented as individual albums, stitched back to back, upside down from each other. John Cobbet one of my absolute favorite musicians, and a real gentleman, had the concept that each album was separate and that you would flip over the cover to see the other album, rather than turning the cover over. The schtick works really well in vinyl. We did it in vinyl and digipak. The photos here are of the digipak.
John provided me with a great painting by Sonju Ratler, who I have never met or thanked for the great accidental collaboration. I don’t have a contact for him to put here. Sorry. Along with this he gave me a large piece of tracing paper with a pencil drawn logo by Sonju. The thing was badass and fully analog, but alas it was in light pencil on tracing paper. He had done the top corner lines thankfully. I drew the bottom have and copied Sonju’s letters where I could. Then I inked the whole thing and added digital color. I don’t know if it’s what he would have wanted but hey. Also John gave me his own drawing of the crow, wires and water tank for the back cover. Since this was already such a collaboration I enlisted Alex Braubach to make cool splattery textures we used all over the place.
Lettering finish by butcherBaker
Background by butcherBaker
Lettering by Ratler & butcherBaker
front (right) painting by Sonju Ratler
Silhouette drawing by John Cobbet
Background by butcherBaker
Lettering by Ratler & butcherBaker
Oddly I did the Church of Broken Glass cover painting as a spread so the booklet could be wraparound.
Concept and direction by John Cobbet.
Fields cover painting & logo by Sonju Ratler.
Church of Broken Glass illustration & logo by butcherBaker.
It was a pleasure to work with Profound Lore Records.
This is a really lovely progressive metal album. I’ve played it hundreds of times. The opening trio on Fields is seriously excellent, beginning with a driving pastoral and building to Queen level overload. Too Soon is another favorite from Fields. Church of Broken Glass has the same titled ballad and Butchertown, which was amazing live, and Train which really stand out to me. An album worth checking out.