Chinawhite — A Dragon's Birth
The Art Corner was a series of articles by graphic artist Mattias Norén, who was part of the DPRP team and designed the layout we had at the time. In this series, Mattias reviewed the artwork of albums. The series started in January 1999 and ran for about 18 months.
The original introduction of the series is included below and will tell you what it was all about. This category no longer runs, so information about submitting an album for review has been removed, but we're keeping the archived articles as a separate series in the Features category.
Check out Mattias Norén's company website: ProgArt!
Dear visitor of The Art Corner!
Some people say that it's just the inside that counts, but I'm actually one of those men that cares much about the outside as well! :-)
The Art Corner only concentrates on the outside. What I think about the inside, the music, I'll keep for myself in this case.
Each album has been given 1 to 5 points in seven different categories.
- Design / Composition: Is the idea and layout good?
- Technical skill: Is the artist good at what he is doing?
- Connection to the music: Is the artwork inspired by the music, album title and the lyrics? Does it feel good to look at the cover at the same time you listening to the music?
- Logotype: How good is the design of the logotype?
- Typography: How good is the typography? (cover and backcover)
- Booklet: How good is the typography, artwork, layout and paper quality?
- Disc: How good is the typography, artwork, layout on the disc?
Mattias Norén
Chinawhite — A Dragon's Birth (private release - EN 54633, 1997)
Design
Cover art by Don Feltges
Package concept by John Korsten and Peter Cox
Computerized by John Korsten
Photo's by Eric Schouren
Scores
| category | score |
|---|---|
| Design and composition | |
| Technical skill | |
| Connection to the music | |
| Logotype | |
| Typography | |
| Booklet | |
| Disc |
Score: 3.1
Comments
A nice airbrush painting that I think could have been presented in a better way. I think the logotype and the title of the album take too much space. I'm not fond of the colour setting of those either.
The painting is done with an old and very effective technique. The upper half is very detailed and realistic and the lower half is a simple line drawing. I like that. The booklet has just 4 pages and is not much to say about those. The label print is simple but very nice indeed.
In my eyes this is a good looking album and I'm looking forward to see (and hear 😃) their next one that is supposed to be out later this year.
Album Review
Update!
As of late 2022, the band still exist. Check out the links below and know that you can get A Dragon's Birth on Bandcamp!
