Robots, Mohawks, and How I Use AI in Design

Designing the cover art for Celldweller's remix of LANDMIND

Listen to the Celldweller remix of LANDMIND

Every now and then, a particularly special project lands in my inbox. I’ve been a Celldweller fan since his self-titled debut release back in the early 2000s, so when we received confirmation that Klayton was remixing the Eyes of Your Eyes track "LANDMIND," our whole crew was ecstatic.

Thankfully, I got to create the artwork for this release! It was a daunting task as both a fan and designer. I wanted to share my side of this collaboration, as it’s one of my favourite projects and also provides some insight into my process for EOYE artwork.

To explain the context and style of this image, I feel like I need to take you on a little journey into the history of EOYE and its design aesthetic.

With EOYE, Abel and I had many discussions early on about his vision for the work. Ideas emerged and evolved quickly; sometimes, you just creatively sync with someone, and everything falls into place.

The Toolbox

The first thing I did for EOYE was to assemble a library of styles, image treatments, color schemes, and typefaces that would become my EOYE toolbox. I spent some time experimenting with images, working out glitch effects, making Photoshop actions, and creating color filters—essentially all the tools I would reuse to create a consistent style. With every new track that get’s released this library expands a little as the concept as a whole evolves.

How I am using AI in design

I managed to get early access to MidJourney, and like most people, I was blown away by what it could do—the concept of text-to-image was completely new to me, and I instantly felt like it was one of the most amazing digital tools I had ever used. It was like pure magic in its ease of use.

I knew right away this was going to be a controversial technology, and admittedly, it made me feel a little insecure about my career and what it might mean for the design industry—at least initially.

At the time, I wasn’t sure how this new AI technology would integrate into my workflow, but when the EOYE project started coming together, I knew it was going to be useful for bringing some of our crazy ideas to life.

Here’s how I use MidJourney: After we discuss a concept for the artwork, I usually spend a few hours in MidJourney generating assets. I typically have a clear vision of what I need, so it’s more about refining prompts to get the images as close as I can to that vision. I’m not looking for perfection in this process—it very rarely generates an image that I could use "as is." Sometimes, everything it makes is unusable, and I’ll move on.

What I’m looking for are parts of an image that I can use. The cover concept below with the cyborg brain and spine is a great example. It’s made up of 8-10 images generated in MidJourney that I’ve chopped up in Photoshop to create a base image to start from.

Maybe I’m just hopeless at prompting, but this process works for me—I don’t want AI to create a finished piece of art; I just want some assets to help bring my vision to life. Could I create these images myself? Sure, and if I don’t land any ideas in MidJourney, I’ll head back into the creative suite. But this tool gives me options, and it would be crazy not to make the most of the tools available.

In some ways, it’s like a musician using samples—I can take an audio sample someone else has made and manipulate it into something that sounds completely different. It takes on the quality of my own expression.

The Method

Once I have a base image complete, it’s time to start processing in Photoshop. I dig into my EOYE toolbox and begin applying various Photoshop actions, blending modes, and all sorts of WeirdShit™ that I’ve created for the project, experimenting until I reach a result I’m happy with. This can sometimes take entire days, and it’s a destructive process—after a certain point, you can no longer go back and make edits. I quite enjoy the philosophical nature of the destructive process; it’s something that also helps me with making music. If I’m able to go back and make changes, I find I start to overthink what I’m doing.

There have been occasions where, after a few hours, I’ve completely abandoned an idea because it just wasn’t capturing the right feel. I’ll go back to the initial image and try a different path—processing, layering, processing some more, flattening, modifying colors—it’s an endless cycle of experimentation. This is the part I love the most, as you never really know what you’re going to end up with. Trust in the process, as they say!

The Finished Product

Alternate Cover

This was another cover design that we pitched to the FIXT crew. It was based on the original LANDMIND artwork of a brain with a bomb timer grafted to it. I wanted to do a more Celldweller themed take on the original so explored a more scifi/cyberpunk approach recreating the brain out of cybernetic parts and incorporating the Celldweller logo device.

Because the device is symmetrical, I wanted to keep the brain and spine in the same style to maintain the overall composition's balance. In the end, we all loved the “Klayborg” version (our nickname for the mohawk-adorned robot) too much, so we opted to run with that—it just felt more iconic.

You can see how the glitched device from this image was used in the social media graphics and also on the website, sometimes having extra concepts available is really useful!

This was an outtake from an early part of the process that I kept. It never ended up being used, but it shows how you can end up going down a different path.

I hope you enjoyed a look into the creation of this album art and hearing a little about my process for Eyes of Your Eyes. Have a great week everyone.