Monday, February 7, 2011

The Cars: new album cover design illusion


The Cars are back with a new album: “Move Like This” will be released on May 10.

The record will be the band’s first in 24 years, one that will feature original Cars members Ric Ocasek, guitarist Elliot Easton, keyboardist Greg Hawkes and drummer David Robinson (bassist Benjamin Orr died of pancreatic cancer in 2000).

Over the past few months, The Cars have issued short teaser clips of some of the new songs, and it sure sounds like the original Cars sound has remained intact (with the exception of Orr’s missing vocals, obviously).

On Monday, The Cars posted the cover image for the new album.

Here’s the interesting thing about it: on first glance, the image of guitarist Easton (on the far left blue panel) appears to be backwards; Elliott is a left-handed player, but the image seems to shows him as a ‘righty.’

This ‘illusion’ ultimately depends on the angle of the original photo; since you can’t see much of the guitar, it seems that the shot does capture Easton as a ‘lefty.’

I suspect the photo was taken from Elliot’s right side, and so the image makes sense. If the band had used another shot/angle, and the guitar neck went left instead of right, things would appear in a much more obvious fashion.

Interesting graphic design stuff.


The Cars – All Mixed Up

Rock Goes To College
University Of Sussex – Brighton, UK -January 13, 1979


See also:

The Cars confirm release date for new album
The Cars reunion produces more new music
hennemusic: Steven Tyler leads list of 10 Rockers To Watch In 2011
More new music from The Cars
The Cars: reunion is ON
“Reunion by The Cars?”