Mission Impossible 2

In Mission Impossible 2 (aka M:I-2 aka MI2), Tom Cruise returns to his signature movie franchise, this time helmed by Hong Kong action director John Woo.

For this movie project, I worked on the CD packaging design for the MI-2 film soundtrack release. This primarily consisted of designing the CD booklet, jewel case inlay, and back cover. (Like many film soundtracks and scores, the album cover is a cropped version of the original domestic movie poster art, which was designed by another agency.)

For the movie soundtrack, the client specified the number of pages (folds) in the compact disc booklet insert to accommodate all of the track listings and music information. Laying out the soundtrack information on one side of the fold-out meant the reverse side would consist of a (very long) piece of key art. That solution used the most obvious element from the film’s theatrical campaign: flames (and lots of them). Creating a piece of art that wide was a surprising challenge, not the least of which having to take into account where the folds of the booklet fell in relation to the artwork. I also did double duty as the finish retoucher for the final art, something normally handled by a professional retoucher, but not always the case on smaller projects like this.

This version of the soundtrack packaging design was limited to the first pressing of the CD due to a disagreement (unrelated to the design) between the clients Hollywood Records and Paramount Pictures. Later releases of the soundtrack featured a different booklet design by another design agency.