Asgard — Drachenblut
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?

Asgard — Drachenblut (Dragon's Music - DRMUS 002, 2000)
Design
Band Photos: Anton Huber
Scores
category | score |
---|---|
Design and composition | |
Technical skill | |
Connection to the music | |
Logotype | |
Typography | |
Booklet | |
Disc |
Score: 2.4
Comments
This is Asgard's fifth release and the cover is in the same vain as their previous ones, except for the first one Götterdämmerung. The inside of the inlay card contains an image with details from their earlier albums.
The only connection I can see between this cover and the title of the album is the red colour (I'm not 100% sure, but I believe Drachenblut means dragon blood). With a little imagination, you can believe that it shows a river of red dragon blood. But to me, the cover isn't interesting enough. There is nothing in the artwork that capture the viewers interest.
The booklet is OK. No more, no less.
I looked for it, but I couldn't find the name of who is responsible for the artwork.
Conclusion: the artwork follows the Asgard tradition, and that is good. I also think this cover is better than their last one, Imago Mundi, but I think they could develop this style a bit more to give the album more identity.