Shroud DVD Artwork

When I completed my first feature-length film Shroud, I promptly began designing DVD packaging art in anticipation of submitting the film to film festivals as well as interested distributors.

It was important to me that Shroud’s DVD packaging look iconic and professional.

The DVD sleeve art incorporates an iconic portrait of the main character, Lady Victoria Celestine (Nicole Leigh Jones) and the ligatured title. She is looking “into” the DVD artwork.

On the back appears the anachronistic image of Lady Celestine in medieval plate armor (handmade by Patrick Thaden and Ugo Serrano of Thaden Amory) looking over her left shoulder (regardant, per heraldry) to us, the audience. This image introduces the out-of-place puzzle of the bullet-proof plate armor.   Behind her is the mysterious cave where the answers to the mystery are found.

Below this is a row of three images showing 1) Her husband’s journal (that which answers the mystery); 2) Mayor Undercroft (the mystery personified, facing us); and 3) The Greyriders (those who defend and profit from the mystery).

From cover to the back cover, the images convey the steps of the story.

The film’s credits are listed on the bottom.

Being a first film, it was critical to imbue the DVD artwork with stunning design and visual elements that would instantly captivate both men and women of any demographic.

The two main images of Nicole Leigh Jones (cover in red dress, back in armor) were photographed by the very talented Gayla Partridge (Austin, Texas).

David Jetre | Creative Director
Sandmerrick, Inc.
twitter | www.sandmerrick.com

Shroud Vintage Materials

With Shroud set in the early 1860’s, it was important to create the necessary vintage documentation to authenticate the various fantasy elements of the script.  Extensive paperwork was created (train tickets, business cards, Old World branding and collateral, maps and mystic indicia) in order to supply the main character with the literature needed to solve the mystery and ground the information historically.

Given the historical, archaeological, arcane, occult and spiritual content of Johnathan’s detailed journal, there was just no way around having to build the book from scratch and manually bind it.

No easy way to do this: lots of searching on the Internet, frequent evenings at Barnes & Noble and hundreds of hours lounging at the local library.

In conjunction with Design & Technology Consulting Services (www.dtcs.net), Sandmerrick, Inc. (www.sandmerrick.com) provided the copy writing, layout and design of Johnathan’s journal. Once the necessary text, symbols, indicia and illustrations were accumulated, recreated and generated, the designers compiled the entire journal in spreads in Adobe InDesign CS2 using Adobe Illustrator(graphic elements & glyphs), Adobe Photohop (effects and distressing) and Adobe InDesign (compilation).

Finally approved, we submitted it to Digital Document Services (www.ddsep.com) for printing. Afterward, we forwarded the loose pages to Betty Barna of Kaligrafos (www.kaligrafos.com) for manual bindery.

On film the scores of pseudo-vintage documents played beautifully.

David Jetre | Creative Director
Sandmerrick, Inc.
twitter | www.sandmerrick.com

Shroud Logo Design

Once Shroud was green lit for production, there was an immediate and lingering concern on how to brand a film with a simple title of only six letters: Shroud.

Various type treatments and fonts were explored without satisfaction.  Eventually, the decision was made to incorporate two ligatures into the title.  By combining the graphemes “h” + “r” and “u” +”d” the title was imparted with two glyphs which served the mystery of the story by fusing otherwise familiar letters into unknown new ones.

The title additionally suggests illiteracy in the town’s signage, which carries this scribal abbreviation.

From there the logo was burnished to distinguish it from the rustic background of the DVD sleeve art.  A subtle drop shadow was added for effect, and to lift the logo from the iconic image of Lady Celestine.

David Jetre | Creative Director
Sandmerrick, Inc.
twitter | www.sandmerrick.com