Some albums ask to be illustrated. Others ask to be interpreted.

Bob Seger’s songs are filled with the passage of time—of youth remembered, places revisited, and the quiet realization that the years have changed both the world and the people moving through it. Rather than creating imagery around individual songs, I wanted the packaging itself to feel as though it had weathered those years.

The title became the conceptual anchor. Borrowed from “Rock and Roll Never Forgets,” “Sweet 16’s Turned 31” was split horizontally, with the upper half remaining crisp while the lower half dissolved into blur—a simple gesture suggesting the way memory loses its edges over time. From there, every design decision followed the same idea.

My photographs of cracked walls, peeling surfaces, and fading paint became visual metaphors for age rather than decay. Distressed paper, manipulated scanner artifacts, fragments of newsprint, and even the exposed mechanics of the scanner itself were incorporated to create imagery that felt discovered rather than manufactured. Small details reward closer attention, including a photograph marked “9 Reserved,” a quiet nod to Seger’s “Nine Tonight.”

The typography, particularly within the lyric booklet, reflects the experimental editorial design that shaped independent music culture at the turn of the millennium. Its fragmented rhythm wasn't intended to obscure the music but to echo it—to make the package feel like something handled, worn, and carried through time.

Like the songs themselves, the design suggests that what survives isn’t untouched. It’s marked by the years, and made richer because of them.