A few weeks back I got a request to do some custom covers for Alan Silvestri’s 1986 soundtrack to Flight of the Navigator. I never heard the score on album, but the film was one of my childhood favourites, so I gave it a go. Unlike in this day and age, promotional material was rare back then. And high resolution material was almost non-existent. I usually try to avoid working below 1000px image resolution, so this series proved to be a real challenge.

#1: Flight of the Navigator (Custom)

#2: Flight of the Navigator (Custom)

#3: Flight of the Navigator (Custom)

#4: Flight of the Navigator (Custom)

#5: Flight of the Navigator (Custom)

The only suitable image I found was a really beautiful painting created by Macedonian artist Marko Manev. You definitely have to check out more of his work, especially his Noir series which are simply terrific. Some of the best works I’ve seen in a while. So I took the liberty of borrowing his Flight of the Navigator tribute art and turned it into the only real custom artwork within this series (#1) – all others are based on actual material from the film. At first my intention was to create a customized hand-drawn film logo to keep the focus on the imagery. But somehow it didn’t feel like the same movie anymore. So I completely recreated the official logo and gently tweaked it until it had the right balance between 80’s style and modern art.

The next two entries are based on official poster art (#2, #3). Sometimes I prefer soundtrack covers that actually do look like their cinematic counterparts. I had to accept a few limitations though, as for example source material that wasn’t as clean or the official logos that had to be cut out by hand and stuff like that. My goal was to reach a consistency that felt just like a genuine soundtrack cover from the 80’s would feel like.

Diggin deep into Google image search (everything beyond page 5 is deep…) I’ve also found some HD screen caps, if one can call ’em like that. They are more like upscaled DVD caps, but they served a purpose (#4, #5). I wanted to create some custom covers in style of these old, big Vinyl jackets from the old days. Complete with tiny, almost unreadable album credits, low-key colours and the inevitable record disc scuffs. I even included a picture of the composer on one cover, an odd thing that rarely happens anymore in today’s film music business (rightly so). But it’s a simple trick to recall the golden days of my – and anyone’s – childhood from thirty years ago, and therefore it’s justified.

To round off this entry I decided to remake the liner notes booklet as well. I found some original scans on the web and could have slapped them together carelessly in no time. But since this website’s category is called “Digital Booklets”, I didn’t want to publish an analoge, low-resolution version. So I gave myself one additional day and recreated it entirely, including a completely new front cover.