Looking back at my blog history, it’s obvious how much the Alien series means to me. I’ve spent countless of hours designing individual custom covers or whole CD or vinyl mockups. Heck, for Prometheus alone, I have created over a hundred different designs. For a long time, those projects were my safe space – a way to retreat, to dive into that horrific yet beautiful universe that feels so cold and dark and infinite. I simply fucking love those deep blue-and-black colour palettes in Cameron’s Aliens, for example. For many, this means the ultimate nightmare, but for me it’s like a dream I’d never wanna wake up from. If I were to walk into my cave to find my power animal, like the narrator in Fight Club, I’m sure a Xenomorph would be waiting there for me.
And yet it’s been ages since I last created anything for this franchise, and I’m not even sure why. I even skipped Fede Álvarez’ highly successful resurrection from last year, even though I had the urge to make something. But Joel over at the Soundtrack Gallery released such superb covers that, to be honest, I didn’t see any need to follow suit. He nailed it. Sometimes it’s better to just admire someone else’s work.
Now comes Alien: Earth and it was probably my most anticipated work of media this year. So when the first posters started popping up right around the new year, I knew it was finally time for me again to take a deep dive.
What has impressed me most about the series so far is its visual design. I’ve always had a weakness for the tactile, “old-fashioned” feel of Ridley Scott’s Alien. The way everything looked industrial and gritty, with shadows clinging to the edges of every corridor. The world-building in itself was unsettling and showrunner Noah Hawley clearly taps into that feeling again.
Set two years before the events of the original film, the series is a full-on throwback to that era. It is really reveling in analog cassette-futurism and an absolute treat to experience in ultra high-def! At the same time, however, it feels futuristic and new, packed with technologies that are clearly far ahead of our time. Combining these two elements is a very delicate balancing act, but Alien: Earth masters it just the right way. The series as a whole might not perfect, but it’s the most alive the franchise has felt in years. It doesn’t just remind us why we love this universe – it dares to show us what else it can be.
And then there’s Jeff Russo’s score. His music is mournful, ghostly, tense in ways that make your skin crawl. At times it feels like a funeral procession, at others like a nervous heartbeat echoing through the empty corridors. Yes, he references Goldsmith, Horner, and even Goldenthal here and there, but never in a blatant way like a museum piece. Instead, he captures the spirit of the old scores and then veers off in new directions: strange instruments, unexpected textures, sounds that don’t “belong” in the Alien universe, but instantly expand it.
This also includes the bold inclusion of end credits songs – a novelty for this franchise, as none the films so far dared to follow this trademark 90s schtick. I know this is probably more down to Hawley, but it nonetheless proves that the people behind Alien: Earth were willing to break new grounds rather than just recycle what we already know. The result is a score that can certainly hold its own, even alongside the magnificent works that this film series has produced over the years.
Let’s move on to the album artwork. What didn’t necessarily impress me on the official cover was the font design. Hollywood Records was indeed mindful enough to utilize the same font that was used in the “Earth” logotype (Gomme Sans), but that’s where their thoughtfulness ended. The entire text was in the same font size and bold format, without any attention to spacing or image margins. Kinda lazy! On top of that, I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the centered FX logo sitting above the Alien: Earth logo. It’s a little too large for my taste, and also, it takes up valuable vertical space that could otherwise be used for a slightly larger image motif. IMHO it belongs in one of the corners, like Deutsche Grammophon handles the DG logo in their their covers. So I reformatted and rearranged everything, hopefully creating a more homogeneous look that takes attention away from the text and instead gives the actual artwork a little more breathing space. “Fixing” covers like this always feels like I’m ironing out all the little inconsistencies until the jigsaw falls into place. Quite wholesome!
For my own enjoyment, and hopefully yours too, I not only applied my edit to the main image of the official cover (#1), but also created variations using the other very well done key art images from the marketing campaign (#2 to #18). Among them, you will find not only the single release of the track “Strange Brew”, which plays during the opening credits of every episode (#18), but also two special gatefold editions, which I designed as both CD and vinyl releases with slightly different front covers (#16, #17) and a tracklist in chronological order. Unfortunately, due to limited runtime, I had to leave out the gorgeous string quintet versions that are included in the official soundtrack. Check out the mockups above to get a better idea of how I would imagine such a dual release.
A special surprise was a separate score album for the fifth episode of the series (titled “In Space, No One…“), which not only served as a flashback episode, but also as a kind of stand-alone Alien film within the season that can largely be considered a classic homage of Ridley Scott’s original. Needless to say, a dedicated love-letter like this deserves an appropriate cover design. And tribute covers have always been my passion, so….
HQCovers 
You knocked this one out the park! Outstanding work and many thanks for sharing.
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