Long before the digital era and the design disciplines that emerged with it, there was a unique canvas, reaching a visual audience of millions; every designer dreamed of working on a vinyl record album cover.
Invented in 1938 by graphic designer Alex Steinweiss while working at Columbia Records as an art director, album cover art quickly became one of the most important design disciplines in the world. Thanks to Steinweiss’s inventive concept and unique visual language, a new way of representing music was born.
In the following years, cover design became a vital part of music albums, not to mention a strong cultural influence. It was one of the few mediums at the time which reached millions of people and had a truly global impact thus providing designers with a canvas through which they could express their creativity and originality to the whole world. It was also considered to be among the most effective marketing tools. Oftentimes the album cover was the main thing that persuaded people to purchase an album, rather than the music itself. In many cases, the cover design was in fact much better than the music it represented.
The importance of cover design was so immense that it became a way for artists to popularize themselves and their work. Many renowned artists, such as Andy Warhol, Burt Goldblatt and Roger Dean either gained fame or kick-started their careers by designing album covers.
Here is a selection of some of the most creative and appealing album covers:
Jazz
Abstract and peculiar, just like the music they represent. Jazz covers were among the first to true pieces of album art. Most of the these covers utilize bold typography and illustrations to grab the attention of the viewer.
John Coltrane - Olé
Bill Barron - The Tenor Stylings
Chicago Style Jazz
Domnérus Antiphone Blues
Doldinger - Jazz Made in Germany
Jan Johanson
The Nick Travis Quintet - The Panic Is On
Egil Kapstad Choir & Orchestra - Live
Cool Gabriels
Hans Kollers Kvintett
Charlie Parker And Arne Domnerus
Yosuke Yamashita Trio - Dancing
Classical
Faithful to the genre and the music it represents, the cover art for many of the classical albums released on vinyl was elegant and stylish, often directly depicting the title of the classical piece with beautiful illustrations.
Tchaikovsky - Pathétique
Ravel - L'enfant Et Les Sortiléges
Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 11 & 22
Tchaikovsky - Concerto In D Major
The Beggar Student
Andre Kostelanetz And His Orchestra
Rock / Heavy Metal / New Wave
Provocative, disturbing, genius, but most importantly unforgettable and immediately attention grabbing. The designers behind these covers, not without the help of some musicians themselves, were renowned for pushing the boundaries.
The Alan Parson Project - Pyramid
Asia - Astra
Van Halen - 1984
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
ZZ Top - Afterburner
Def Leppard - Hysteria
Blondie - Picture This
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Joy Division - Unknown Pleasures
Kino - Gruppa Krovi
Sacrosanct
Nuggets
Hipgnosis
Hipgnosis was a design agency consisting primarily of Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell, and Peter Christopherson specialized in cover art design. Due to their incredible talent and the influence they had on cover design, I decided to showcase some of their most notable, as well as not-so-famous covers separately.
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon
Pretty Things - Savage Eye
Elegy - The Nice
Al Stewart - Past, Present And Future
Renaissance - Prologue
The Electric Light Orchestra - ELO 2
Wishbone Ash - Live Dates
Bad Company - Bad Co
Black Sabbath - Thechnical Ecstasy
Pink Floyd - Animals
Pink Floyd - Meddle
Join the conversation
Do you remember the beauty of the vinyl album cover art? Do you have any favorites? If you do, feel free to share a link to them, I’d love to see them! Finally, if you liked this article, share it with your friends so that they too can remember the forgotten beauty!