The Mess front cover. Notice the inner sleeve within the die-cut circle.

From YAGOW:

The Mess takes you on a drive across a desert wasteland in a big old rust bucket of a car — with sunglasses on and your head bobbing to the music of the bumps in the road. YAGOW set a timeless mood that transports you away from the meddles of everyday life and into higher spirits.

Four years after their self-titled debut album, the psychedelic rock trio YAGOW return with The Mess. The album is released through Berlin-based independent label Crazysane Records. The album cover is printed in a combination of PMS neon orange on top of purple hues built up in CMYK. The cardboard stock is coated — matte on the outside, and glossy on the inside.

Like on the artwork for their previous release, the revived Hershey Fonts, a type family with roots just as obscure as the music, appear all over. Frank Grießhammer dug deep and told their story at TypeCon2015 in Denver. The album’s typography combines different fonts:

Yagow’s “logo” is rendered in (Hershey) Italian Gothic, a set of Lombardic caps that A.V. Hershey modeled after Will Bradley’s Missal Initials (ATF, 1904). The album title is set in Simplex Script. Ornaments and the large word mark on the back are set in a customized version of Italian Gothic. The side indicators A and B are set in Complex Script. The track list uses the triple stroke Triplex Roman with initials set in a mixture of Italian and English Gothic (depending on the look). To fit long words on a single line, the O’s of Triplex Roman are swapped for their Italian Gothic counterparty, which are a touch narrower. The two emblems are composed out of various Gothic glyphs. Liner notes and other small information are set in Simplex (single-stroke) and Simplex Script – and there are probably more combinations which I forgot to mention, sorry!

The “special feature” of The Mess is a die-cut circle that acts as a picture frame for the artwork. The uncoated black front cover forms a haptic contrast to the coated innersleeve and the coated inside of the album jacket (which is also printed in 5 colours). A peacock, the new mascot animal of the band, is shown before a Suminagashi background on the innersleeve in a resting position. Once you draw the innersleeve out, the printed inside of the jacket is visible and shows that same bird, but proudly crowing.

It should be noted that the vinyl labels are a part of the Crazysane Records corporate design, developed by Fabian Bremer. The labels are basically the same for all CSR releases and the color is adapted to suit the cover artwork.

Designing The Mess was, once again, a joint project of my dear friend Daniel Fuchs and myself (Manuel). Thank you, Daniel, for being there! And big ups to the band whom we call friends for a decade now. Thank you for letting us do whatever we want, especially letting me fool around with these lovely-yet-slightly-silly fonts.

The Mess front cover and the limited edition “peacock” vinyl color option

The Mess front cover the partially drawn out innersleeve — the crowing bird appears

The Mess back cover with Hershey Fonts typeface combinations, and the black vinyl color option. The vinyl labels use the Crazysane Records template with all text set in a Scangraphic’s Ad Grotesk: a copy of Akzidenz Grotesk.

The Mess, the complete story: cover, innersleeve and “peacock” edition record

The Mess back cover, details

Detail photo of the front cover, showing the contrast between matte and glossy cardboards and 1C (outside) and 5C (inside) printing methods.