I once had a client from the music industry, whom I designed CD covers for. I usually made three good designs and an ugly one for him. He always chose the ugly one.
This was a long time ago and I don't work for the music industry anymore, good designs still get rejected sometimes though. But instead of trashing my rejected designs, I can post them here instead.
The first one is a book by Mark Kuntz, called "the last smoker", which is probably a book about the last man still smoking cigarettes, or maybe he just feels like that, i don't know. I like the design, because it has the same look as the Lucky Strike print campaign, that seems to have been running for ever here in Germany. It also implies, that the last smoker feels he has to hide his habit. maybe too subtle, maybe too far away, i don't know, but it was rejected.
Just like the second one, a mystery novel by Declan Hughes. With this one i'm pretty sure that it was too subtle. They probably wanted something that screamed murder, blood and guts. I thought, since it has the word blood in its title twice (blood of my blood), i might try something different. Well, rejected anyway, but i like the handmade typography on the foggy, monochrome image.
