I've often wondered about the process that toy companies commissioned box art or VHS makers commissioned video cover art. I guess it's all online now but at one time it won't have been. For example, one of my favourite American boxes is the Tarheel of Tarboro Probe Force 2 photo art. How did they achieve that in 1967? Was it an artist or a photographer do you think?
Terranova47, having experience of box art and commissioning, gave me his thoughts:
Hello Woodsy
Well, I know that when I worked on VHS Tape packaging, the art was supplied as it was from the publicity material created for the cartoon, movie or TV show.
It was a matter of cropping and fitting in all the information, copyright etc. Only on a few occasions, where the tape was a documentary, was a photo chosen from stock photo libraries.
The Project Sword box was probably a photo of the toy against a background painting. A photo retoucher added the motor stream to a print and it was re-photographed. In this case any other toys from the range may have had the same background. So it was both an artist and a photographer plus a designer for the text box and side and ends of the lid.
Now, photo retouchers used to take a print, sometimes they would bleach away areas then airbrush or paint in a replacement image. They were talented, skilled and expensive.
These days the cost of the software, Photoshop for instance, would be the equal cost of one retouching job done the old way. Now it's possible, and I've done this, to hire someone online to substitute a person in a group shot for $25! 30 years ago that would have been hundreds of dollars!
Terranova47
USA
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What are your thoughts about the American Project SWORD Probe Force 2 photo-box art?
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