Limp Bizkit CD Covers

With Limp Bizkit as my chosen artist, I would like for my digi-pak to follow the conventions present in their CD covers. By making links between their font types, motifs, imagery, colours, layout etc. I'll try and incorporate the most common and representative elements into the design of my own digi-pak. My hope is that my digi-pak will follow the conventions closely enough as to be nearly un-distinguishable from other Limp Bizkit CD's.




Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ - 1997

The cover of this album was created by Limp Bizkit's guitarist Wes Borland, he also created the artwork for all of Limp Bizkits albums except for Results May Vary, which was recorded during the period when Wes had left the band. The colour scheme of the cover is black, red and white, the black being a focus colour, used to emphasise and mask the identity of a solitary character on the left side of the cover. The bands name is placed on the upper right of the cover, emphasised by its red and black outline and pure white fill. The font of both the bands name and CD title is a graffiti like style with the bands name being capitalized and the CD title being in lower case.




Significant Other - 1999

Unlike the previous CD, this cover uses alot of different bright colours, with the only colour related focus point being the bands name, filled with bright orange and outlined with pure white, placed in the lower right of the cover. Just like the previous CD, this cover also has a solitary character as the main focus point located on the left side of the cover. The character is also masked as if to shield their identity just like the previous cover. Also like the previous cover, the font of the bands name is in a graffiti font and is capitalized, although the CD's title is in a more standard text font but still remaining in lower case.



Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water - 2000
Unlike the previous covers, the main focus point is not just one character, it is three and instead of being located on the left side of the cover, is in the centre. Also, the characters are no longer masked, although, you could consider the similar, plain, featureless faces of the characters a form of mask that hides their individuality. The layout of the band name and CD title is also changed, with the band name located at the upper centre and the CD title located at the bottom centre. The font is also now all in standard text and lower case, and is very dull with it's grey fill ontop of the black background of the cover, which ultimately makes the characters seem as if they are being illuminated by a single light in the dark.


Results May Vary - 2003

Unlike the other CD covers, this one was not created by Wes Borland, but still follows some conventions. The bands name and CD title are again located on the right side of the cover, now in the upper right corner, but are now substantially smaller than the previous covers and now also include the bands logo. Again, there is one solitary character on the left/centre of the cover. The use of shadow and green tint also masks the characters face from recognition. The green tint may be a reference to The Incredible Hulk, as to emphasise the angry expression of the character.





Gold Cobra - 2010

This album was recorded when guitarist Wes Borland had rejoined the band, and by doing so was able to again create the album artwork. The positioning of the band name and CD title, much like the Chocolate Starfish album cover, is centred, but unlike the others, is in the middle of the cover. Like the first two albums, the bands name is in capitals and the CD title, unlike any of the other albums, is also in capitals, but like most of the other albums, is still smaller in text size than the band name. Both the band name and CD title are mostly in bold font, with the second part of the band name being in a graffiti like font, similar to the first two albums. The band name and CD title also avry in font colour, with the CD title being yellow and half of the bands name being white and the other hald being yellow. The focus point of the cover is the two characters; a woman and a cobra. The woman is not masked in any way, where the characters in all the other covers are masked in some way. Although the woman isnt masked, she is not the main focus; it is the cobra character that takes up most of the cover and its face is faded and distorted, as if it is fading away like smoke. This makes the characters face unrecognisable, therefore masking him. The main colours of the cover are black and yellow; much like Chocolate Starfish, the black emphasises the main focus point of the cover (the characters) and the yellow used on the characters and the band name emphasises them even more, amplified by the contrast of yellow and black.

Conclusions
After analysing the CD covers of Limp Bizkits entire discography, I have come up with the following conclusions:

• The bands name is almost always above the CD title.
  

• In every CD cover of Limp Bizkits albums, there has near always been one solitary character who's face is masked in some way as the covers main focus point.

• Every cover except for 'Results May Vary' has been made by guitarist Wes Borland.

• The bands name has always either been in bold/lower case graffiti style font or simple lower case font.

• The CD title has nearly always been in simple lower case font.

• The cover background nearly always emphasises the covers character.

• The bands name and CD title are always located in either the middle or right of the cover.

• There is sometimes a contrast of colour between the background and either the character or cover text.