Paper Mario is a franchise that has always been a big part of my life. As a designer my dream has been to make custom steelbook cases with my art on them showing the game/movie in a way that draws a viewer in and makes them interested to discover more.
Paper Mario has a fun paper aesthetic that helps to bring the game to life and is very vibrant in color. For this design I wanted to make a custom steelbook that would emphasize the color and craft style that the games have. Using Photoshop I came up with this design for the outside covers of the steelbook.
For the inside artwork I wanted to come up with an original piece of art, so I took the trailer for the game and grabbed screenshots of various parts that I thought looked interesting and used Photoshop to come up with with this. This design is meant to draw the eye in and keep it looking around the design to try to figure out what is happening.
This is where I decided to try something that I have never thought of before. I wanted to take the arts and crafts element that the Paper Mario games use to create the design, so I had some stickers made for the logo and the characters on the back and I experimented with spray paint on the metal to create this final design. With a final gloss coat on top to help preserve the design.
I then went and printed out the design that I made earlier, took the panels of the steelbook off, cut the image in half so that both halves fit in the panels of the steelbook, and closed it up. This is the final design.
I hope that you enjoyed my experimentation with this design, and in some of my other projects I take the techniques like spray painting on the metal and the sticker elements and explore them more. Thank you for taking the time to view this project.
