Visual Style

Album: Plus Minus (+ -)
Artist: Joy Division
Design Studio: Studio Parris Wakefield

First off I’d like to apologise to Studio Parris Wakefield for taking my sweet time to get this post together. But at least I’ve timed this post with the day of it’s release. If you have a Joy Division fan in your life then this release has been perfectly timed with Xmas gift time. Oh [...]



Album: Zipper Catches Skin
Artist: Alice Cooper

While putting together the Fist album collection I noticed this cover from Alice Cooper and was surprised by such a progressive cover for an artist like himself. Even more surprised it was released in the 1980s. Where are the crazy colours, geometric shapes and big loud type?



Album: Pretty Hate Machine 2010
Artist: Nine Inch Nails
Cover Artist: Rob Sheridan

I was lucky enough to catch this tweet by Rob Sheridan. An interesting fact about Rob is that he was hired after Trent liked his fan site! Source “I had the honor of reimagining the artwork of @nineinchnails’ classic “Pretty Hate Machine” for its upcoming re-issue: http://bit.ly/bzO9H7“ I was less interested in the cover itself [...]



The image of a fist is a universal sign of aggression, power and defiance yet there was a significant lack of albums featuring fists. I thought we’d be trawling through hundreds but it seems we have just the few seen below. It’s no mistake that most of the bands are metal and only one has [...]



Album: Amazing Abstract Album Covers from the 1950s
Cover Artist: Various

I find it so hard to believe that these covers are 50+ years old. Some of them look downright modern. The following six covers were chosen by David Day who own Jive Time Records in Seattle, WA. He also runs an amazing blog called Project Thirty-Three which is worth a bookmark. If you ever get [...]



Album: Minimalistic Album Covers
Artist: Various
Cover Artist: Ty Lettau
Design Studio: Sound of Design

We’re a little late with posting this one but Ty Lettau) has created a series of minimalist album covers. Why? No reason it’s just what designers do. The set has been pretty successful for Ty on Flickr. You might think Ty is an unemployed designer with nothing better to do? But he’s actually the designer [...]



Album: New Ameryka Part Two (Return of the Ankh)
Artist: Erykah Badu
Cover Artist: Emek

Israeli-born illustrator Emek is one of the talents keeping poster art alive. Described by Henry Rollins as the “thinking man’s poster artist”, Emek continues many of the traditions of 1960′s psychedelia. His work is always hand drawn and heavily layered, mashing the political and personal; the organic and technical.



Album: Ladyhawke
Artist: Ladyhawke
Cover Artist: Sarah Larnach

Pip Brown, the New Zealand-born multi-instrumentalist better known as Ladyhawke, has overcome a fair bit of misfortune in her young life. At the age of ten she was diagnosed with a disease called erysipeloid, which is common in seagulls but hadn’t been seen in humans in 20 years. If that’s not bad enough, she’s allergic [...]



Album: Person Pitch
Artist: Panda Bear
Cover Artist: Agnes Montgomery, Rob Carmicheal
Design Studio: Seen Studio

Agnes Montgomery is a Philadelphia-based artist that works in collage. Her work has been been getting heaps of attention since she was tapped by Animal Collective member Panda Bear (aka Noah Lennox) to create the cover art for his highly-acclaimed solo release Person Pitch (2007).



Album: Mooi Besoedeling
Artist: Zinkplaat
Design Studio: Fanakalo

Is it just me or is all the innovative cover art being done for the least likely bands. Does being popular dictate that you must be safe? Beck would be the only mainstream artists who are doing anything innovative. Moldover, Menomena, ALB, Bright Eyes, Beck and Pine Bender all have innovative covers and yet they [...]