a ghost is born
album design
During the making of The Wilco Book, the band approached me to design their forthcoming album. Among other reasons, I love the egg because it’s the perfect design object: it’s fragile yet resilient, it can be incubated, and it can be put to a million good / tasty uses. In this case I was happy to put the egg to good use in the unexpected service of rock ‘n roll. Other parts of the design, including the cd and eventually the 12 inch vinyl edition, all stemmed from the egg as the iconic and defining visual anchor. The design for this album won me my first Grammy award (best package design).
Michael Schmelling’s original photograph for one of the panels of “a ghost is born”
CLIENT: Wilco
PROJECT: a ghost is born
DATES: 2004
CREDITS: Peter Buchanan-Smith (design); Michael Schmelling (photography)