The front cover: the spiked Mara logo in liquid gold over pale, spattered artwork, with “No Free World” in spaced red capitals beneath.

Mara · No Free World

Album art for a hardcore record’s ten-year vinyl pressing

For the 10-year anniversary vinyl pressing of No Free World, by the hardcore band Mara, I reworked the existing artwork: a hand-drawn replication of the original art, the logo reworked into a more aggressive metal logo, a liquid gold effect, and everything made ready for vinyl, down to a mockup built from scratch.

Side A

The record

No Free World was written by Mara and recorded and mixed by Nick Loiacono at Fang Studios in San Mateo, California, in spring 2016. The original album art was by Mason Starkey. The anniversary pressing carries my alternate artwork and design.

The left inside panel: the four members of Mara under a stone archway, the photograph broken up and toned in gold and brown.
The right inside panel: the reworked Mara logo in red above the record’s credits, set small in red on marbled white paper.
Inside the gatefold: the band, and the logo over the credits.

Side B

Redrawn

I started from the original, hand drawing a replication of the previous artwork. Then I reworked the band’s logo into a more aggressive metal logo and gave it a liquid gold finish.

The new logo is all spikes and drips: liquid gold on the front, red on the inside panel.

The reworked Mara logo in red: jagged, spiked letters dripping into points.
The reworked logo, as it sits on the inside panel.
A close crop of the front cover’s logo: gold, spiked letterforms with a wet, reflective finish, dripping over grey paper.
The liquid gold, up close.

Side C

Gold over black

Gold, red and black on white. The reworked logo carries the liquid gold on the front, the track list and the inside panel are set in red, and the lyrics sit in gold over black.

A lyric sheet: three columns of lyrics in gold serif type over a black, speckled ground with grey halftone marks, from “A Place for Dark Souls” to “Confinement”.
Sides A to C.
The second lyric sheet: lyrics in gold over black with red spatter at the top left, from “Marked for Death” to “No Free World”.
Sides C and D. Every song, in gold over black.

Side D

Ready for vinyl

I got everything ready for vinyl: the covers, the inside panels and the lyric sheets, built as the files the pressing needs.

  1. FrontThe reworked logo in liquid gold, and the title.
  2. BackThe track list across sides A to D.
  3. InsideThe band on one panel, the logo and credits on the other.
  4. Lyric sheetsEvery song, in gold over black, across two sheets.
  5. MockupMade from scratch, to see it all together.
The back cover: the track list in red capitals, split into sides A to D, over a washed-out photograph of the band on stage, with the Abundance Records and Panda Claw Records marks at the foot.
The back: the track list across four sides.
The anniversary package: the open gatefold above, and the front cover standing beside a gold, black and white swirled record.
To see the whole package together, I made a vinyl mockup from scratch: the open gatefold, the jacket and the record side by side.

Credits

Mara, “No Free World”. 10-year anniversary vinyl, 2026.

Written by Mara. Recorded and mixed by Nick Loiacono at Fang Studios, San Mateo, CA, spring 2016.

Original album art by Mason Starkey.

Alternate artwork and design by Isaiah Short of Blackweb Studio: the hand-drawn artwork, the logo rework, the liquid gold, the vinyl files and the mockup.

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