Das Tapes “After Hours” Album Cover

In 2022, Mark and Kevin Ignatius, who produce electronic dance music under the title of “Das Tapes” were preparing to release a new record titled After Hours. They were looking for a retro-themed album cover design and reached out to R.L. Black who they’d worked with previously on The Long Dark Trail.

After listening to several demo tracks and talking with the artists regarding their project, R.L. began sketching out a design concept that was an homage to the Duran Duran album “Rio” and the outstanding work of Patrick Nagel (who painted the cover for Rio). Although R.L. Black usually works in a distressed comic style for most of his projects, this was to be a slicker and more modern look, especially for the digital album covers.

Multiple alternating designs were generated before a final was settled. A complete vinyl cover was created and then as the duo released tracks remixed by various artists, new alternate covers were created to accommodate those remixes. There was also a cassette case design which is currently in production.

Overall this is an excellent example of taking a retro design theme and modernizing it to look fresh and vibrant. Everything was designed in Clip Studio Paint and the final layouts were generated in Affinity Designer.