The Thieves of Kailua - CD project design - Brian Bosworth

When we began tossing around ideas to create an album cover for 'Thieves', Jason had already self-released the record a year or two beforehand. He was burning the discs himself and sewing these great little burlap sacks with wooden buttons to slip them in. He came to me because he's rifled through my sketchbooks for some time and thought my drawing style would work for his vision. By that point he already had a list of elements that he was drawn to (tropical sunset, mountains, jungle, beach), and a certain aesthetic -- it was important for him to retain a hand crafted, organic feel. The aesthetic I was drawing on came from many places: pin up girls, disney background paintings, 60s tiki style, japanese woodblock prints. I was also looking at jungle plants and tropical birds, and was sketching the whole time. All of the drawings on the cover and the inside flaps were done by hand, but I put everything together and messed with colors on Photoshop (with a little help from Illustrator). The burlap pattern on the sleeve came from a scan of the same material he used for his homemade version. I think I'm drawn to actually listing personal references with musicians I'm working with -- stream of conscious lists of themes, memories, objects or whatever they drew on to create the music -- and sneaking as many symbols of these as possible into the album art. It's a great way to drum up a bunch of wonderful and legitimate material to dig into and work with.