MINDFIELDS ARTWORK
With => Mindfields, Toto wanted to go back to a 'lost art': [...] I don't know if it's even surreal, it's just that this art director, Doug Brown, came up with some stuff, and we were looking for something that was imaginative, that just was interesting and had a lot of different pictures. 'Cause pictures are so one-dimensional to me - with album covers - and we wanted to kinda let people use their imagination. And it seemed like a nice starting place what he had done there, 'cause we always liked the "Sgt. Pepper" albums, "Captain Fantastic", Pink Floyd album covers which you can look at when you're listening to the record. And it seemed to reflect this a little bit, and we worked on the album cover for a long time with input and output, so the whole package just kind of like leads back to the days when you had actual vinyl albums with covers that you can look at and enjoy. I think that's a lost art, people don't do that too much anymore. (David Paich in a 1999 interview with Frank Achmann)
The very impressive artwork on Mindfields (and => "Toto XX") was done by WorldWest Communications. Brian Peterson (from WorldWest Communications) explains all the symbols which are displayed on the cover:
Typically, the band lets us (WorldWest Communications - basically myself and Doug Brown, the owner, creative director and long-time friend of the band and management) take total control of the creative process for their albums (=> Tambu thru Livefields). We threw many ideas at them for the cover, many of which were really out there. Toto has the ability to appear very sophisticated and at the same time not take themselves too seriously. A crude version of the => Mindfields cover, using an existing photograph, was the one chosen.
A different cover had the title "Minefields and Miracles", but I had misread the title when I was creating the covers and typed in MinDfields and Miracles. Dave really liked => Mindfields by itself, and that was that. The title opens up a wide range of possibilities and seemed to fit well with the variety of songs on the album, some of which hadn't been written yet. It was a real thrill to find out that my designs had inspired the guys to write the song => Mindfields.To go with the name, I decided to create a surreal landscape that existed in some other dimension, perhaps in our heads (even blue ones!). I originally set out to create something not unlike the Hipnosis designs of the 70s (Pink Floyd, 10cc), but I eventually turned to the original masters: Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte and M.C. Escher for inspiration.
It was difficult designing the layout because anything and everything was fair game as far as imagery. I eventually realized that certain basic, iconic images had the most impact. Images of the human body, religion, nature, architecture and the mind are accessible to everyone and open to individual interpretation. As far as the band's input, they pointed things out they didn't like and I removed them. I had a Stonehenge with hip-hop graffiti and Simon thought it looked too => Spinal Tap. For a joke, we modified a portrait of them with giant heads and they loved it! I ended up putting it in the picture.
You're right about the numbers. 5 is the magic number (Bobby rejoining the band), pyramids (some got hidden), derbys, fingers, windows, umbrellas, 5 o'clock, bombers, elevator floors. The Infinity Ball is just a twist to the 8-ball. The ring of fire, where the disc resides, is the last remnant of an earlier freakshow concept we were doing. We created circus posters for each of the guys, but that got eliminated. I also did some cool images of the guys as magicians but they got a little cold feet (too silly) and scratched them.
Just some quick comments on the artwork:
Cover: That's Phil Austin of the genius comedy group The Firesign Theater
posing with the glasses. The clouds suggest he is in Heaven but he would
rather be looking into the seductive flames of Hell. Caught in the middle.
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence...
Victrola on flying carpet: The ever taunting presence of the Grammy,
fluttering about.
Derbys: Magritte, objects out of place creating new meaning
Metronome: The ever present ticking of time, death looming, new life being
created in the universe, sword as will of God.
Statue Of Liberty: Planet of The Apes Baby! That movie is due for a remake.
Eiffel Tower: death of culture, Tower of Babel, man's self-destruction
Umbrellas: Magritte, Christo (the guy who put up giant umbrellas across
some country), passing of time, fate.
Baby/Mask: become like a child to find the truth hidden behind strange
masks. Jim Morrison once said that new ideas must first wear strange and
frightening masks before they are accepted by mankind. Whatever.
Bellhop/Mite: Just strange, twist of nature. The nametag reads Martin after
Toto's tour manager. Just as joke. In a Japanese Reunion Tourbook, Martin
changed out the name to read Hartley, Toto's manager!
Hand/Eye/smokestacks: Mystical, man's desire to reach for the clouds. The
smokestack idea came from an XTC (my personal favorite band) single I have
where the hand is made out of bricks with smoke coming out.
Angel: a lethal conflict of religion and sex, ultimate beauty slipping
through your fingers.
Pool: Creation of life and meaning out of a pool of unformed mass in an
instant. the spark of ideas
Ship: Object out of place (Check out the Melanie video, someone did a great
job recreating => Mindfields)
Surfer: waiting for that big last wave. Toto as a well-crafted artisitc device.
Windows: Peek into the other side of the booklet. Messing with depth and
perspective. Blue sky or a wall painted with blue sky? Eclipse: caught in
the middle, limbo, night & day timewarp.
Cube: Pure Escher trick of perspective and dimension
Dunce: some kid being punished for thinking outside the box, pehaps all
these images are coming from his thoughts.
Zebra/Tiger: passive/aggressive conflict. Do I pet it or run from it?
Bug: Sometimes a bug is just a bug. Beautiful or ugly?
Blue head: Man thinking, stuck in the ground always thinking. beware the
elevator to Hell, the danger of inaction. That's producer Elliot Scheiner
on the TV wearing fake teeth and a Mad Hatter hat. TV is a big waste of
time. Phil again.
Pyramids: Mystical, passing of time, eternity
Bombers: technology destroying nature, beauty
Band: just a bunch of lovable geeks.