With this set I’m fulfilling the second out of five promises that I’ve teased on social media at new year’s eve. And it’s really great to finally be able to tick this off of my list. Indiana Jones has always been sort of like a holy grail for me and I’ve made a firm commitment to only start working on it, when I felt like having enough inspiration to turn it into something special (at least for me).

It finally came in the form of my friend SonicAdventure, who offered me a collaboration for one of his established Deluxe Editions. Still a little whacked from my previous (and once again sprawling) work on Ready Player One I accepted, partially hoping that a labor effort like this one would bring back some of my sorely missed spirit. And it surely did!

Right before CineMaterial was confronted with take-down requests from Disney and Universal I’ve manged to download all Indy-related material that seemed to be useful and thus had a good foundation to begin with. However, it also meant that there was little to no chance for additional high quality source images and I had to get along with what I had.

I’m dividing this post into six sets, five of which are coming from me and one was made by my fellow artist tintacle, who already graced my blog with his amazing Ralph McQuarrie Series for the Star Wars original trilogy. For the sake of simplicity, I decided to leave the versions labeled as Deluxe Edition to my friend Sonic and publish the regular versions instead. I hope that is in your interest as well.

Raiders of the Lost Ark

It was only natural to kick into this whole venture with Raiders of the Lost Ark, especially since I already had a Photoshop template at hand, thanks to my Stranger Things spoof cover from last year. I eventually ended up rebuilding it from scratch anyway, but at least it got the ball rolling.

Since this set was such a smooth operation, I went on and made some vintage white alternatives that wonderfully bring out the iconic Raiders/Indy logo. And speaking of logos… I also recreated these (duh!). Of course, with the utmost care for those slightly different colour gradients that were updated on each film.

#1: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Original)

#2: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Custom)

#3: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Custom)

#4: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Custom)

#5: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)

Temple of Doom

This one was considerably harder to accomplish, due to the limited range of source material. Crystal Skull works pretty flawless here (if you don’t mind the mirroring), but Crusade definitely did not. I had to do a lot of trickery to customize the image so that the logo could be placed consistently on all covers. The end result is a rather jarring design, but in this case that was a compromise I just had to make.

I really wish I had matching, gloomy background images for all five scores, but I guess you can’t have everything. I did in fact make darker versions of Raiders and Crusade too, but they just looked too bad and don’t deserve to be part of this collection. Maybe I’ll post them at a later date.

#6: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Custom)

#7: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Remake)

#8: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Custom)

#9: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Custom)

#10: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)

Last Crusade

The third set was possibly the most straightforward as I could use all textless posters right out of the box. My only noteworthy task was identifying the additional font on top. For those interested, it’s “Caslon Pro”, but heavily compressed, which was apparently a common technique at the time. Man, those crazy 80’s…

#11: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Custom)

#12: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Custom)

#13: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Remake)

#14: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Custom)

#15: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

This one was definitely the set I looked forward to the most. Even though it was the hardest one to accomplish, but I love creative challenges like that. Transforming vertically oriented posters into a square format is always tricky. So I’m thrilled to see the results worked out as good as these.

But those weren’t the only obstacles I had to overcome. There were numerous smaller problems that had to get eliminated on the way. For instance, making sure that there’s enough room for the text in the upper area. Or the correct placement of the bottom logo to keep the “of the” part legible. It’s little things like that that keep me busy for days until I can finally sit back with satisfaction.

#16: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Custom)

#17: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Custom)

#18: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Custom)

#19: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Remake)

#20: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)

DVD Collection

This bonus set was mainly made by my buddy tintacle and he generously allowed me to include it on my blog. I initially had plans to make those covers myself, but he already nailed it, so I thought I’d save the trouble and feature his instead.

#21: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Custom)

#22: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Custom)

#23: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Custom)

#24: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Custom)

#25: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)

Dial of Destiny Update

Hard to believe it’s been five years since I posted this collection. But now, a couple days from the theatrical release, I finally sat down and updated all the cover sets above with one additional entry for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. This turned out to be quite a challenge due to the shortage of decent posters. Unfortunately, Disney’s marketing department lacked any motivation and just put out a handful of half-assed poster designs.

But that’s nothing compared to the official soundtrack cover, which I simply consider a joke. I can literally see the overworked and underpaid designer sitting in his tiny office and crapping together the cheapest and quickest version of a soundtrack cover – and I don’t even mean that as an insult. It’s just the sad truth of our entertainment industry today. And it says a lot that Disney greenlit something like this. They obviously don’t give a shit either.

But I do, and that’s why for my last set – despite the original idea behind this whole endeavor – I decided not to work with the official cover. Instead, this last set is based on a custom cover by JWFan forum member crumbs (#30), whose design is just absolutely gorgeous and I consider it to be the real official cover from now on.

#26: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Custom)

#27: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Custom)

#28: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Custom)

#29: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (Custom)

#30: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (Custom)