KISS

At some point in 2021, Universal Music wanted to get more serious with the reissuing of vinyl albums of the KISS catalog. So I was tasked with giving them a refresh, because let’s face it, we’ve all had the music for years, so it is really about the collectible packaging.

Essentially, we created two versions, the limited to 500 deluxe edition, and the limited to 2500 premium edition.

While this isn’t necessarily rocket-science, it should be done respectfully to the original and very detail-oriented when coming up with new solutions. Especially on how to enhance an album cover that might date back 50 years! Some of the enhancements use techniques, such as gloss varnish, embossing, die-cuts, and recently, we used a faux-fur and faux-sand application to enhance parts of the cover art.

However, there are cases where the original art is not available anymore. So what does one do? What does the record company have to resort to? In Kiss’ case, original album jackets were scanned, but, to be honest, the quality was mostly not satisfying. My point being, I want these albums to shine, to look as good as when they originally were released, or even better! Case in point, the album Hotter Than Hell. The scan I was given was simply sub-par. I decided to go the extra mile and recreate the entire cover art from scratch! It was quite a few extra hours, but it was worth it.