The official album artwork (#1) for the recently released soundtrack of Firewatch is damn straight perfect. It cleverly combines the two main aspects of the game, which are the all encompassing national park scenery and the highly immersive walkie-talkie narrative. I really like this artwork and would love to know who’s responsible for it, so I could mail them a bagful of Austrian apples.

What I do know though is that Olly Moss – creator of Mondo’s legendary Star Wars poster trilogy – was responsible for the spectacular art design of the game and it would totally be a sin not to use it for a custom cover, so that’s what I did.

#1: Firewatch (Original)

#2: Firewatch (Custom)

#3: Firewatch (Custom)

#4: Firewatch (Custom)

My very first idea was to come up with a fully fledged digipack design (#2). Indie games nowadays often come bundled with a bunch of extras, including the soundtrack. But due to limited resources it’s usually a digital release only. I wanted to know what it would look like as a real physical object.

An ultra-wide wallpaper, a transparent logo PNG and lastly the original font formed the basis of this 6-panel cardboard cover. And I think those were two well-spent hours.

The slip case below was another possible product design. I recently was on the lookout for new Photoshop mockups again, when I finally stumbled upon a website that posted a whole collection of free templates. Of course I had to test them out immediately. It’s meant to represent a free promo release including a laser engraved holographic disc.

This collection took me about twice as long as it took me to play through the game. And I play really slow! I don’t mean to diminish the game here in any way. It’s just that I intended this entry to be not more than a mere filler. But the final design below was far more demanding than I had thought in the first place.

Campo Santo released those perfectly lined up concept art wallpapers for the game launch and I wanted to make something out of them. At first I just slapped on the logo and some composer’s credits, trying to rely everything entirely on Olly Moss’ artwork. But something was missing. Anybody could have done that! I had to enhance its artistic appeal. And what better way to enhance flat white text, than provide it with some three-dimensional depth. I wanted an additional layer in form of a transparent plastic slipcase, including a die-cut of the Firewatch badge. Hey, why settle for less? Well, as it turned out, sometimes less is more.

What the hell was I thinking? Nothing worked and they looked absolutely horrible. But instead of going back to the drawing board I went the whole hog and decided to “enhance” it even more.

#5: Firewatch (Custom)

#6: Firewatch (Custom)

#7: Firewatch (Custom)

#8: Firewatch (Custom)

Following the recent trend of releasing everything and your mother as a fancy Vinyl special edition, I turned all (by now four) wallpapers into picture discs and housed them in an unostentatious yet elaborate cardboard slipcase. After carefully adding one element after the other I finally was able to draw the line under this custom covers collection.

I’m equal parts happy and relieved to share with you the Classic Palette Edition, the Early Morning Green Edition, the Flute Sunrise Edition and the Sunset Yellow Edition. Grab one as long as they’re available!