"I love music so much and I had such ambition that I was willing to go way beyond what the hell they paid me for. I wanted people to look at the artwork and hear the music."
- Alex Steinweiss
Alex Steinweiss is known as the father of record design because he invented the album cover. He worked for Columbia Records and in 1940 pitched the idea to change from making plain brown covers to colourful artwork. His work featured bold typographic designs and modern, elegant illustrations. He tended to use metaphors and musical symbols rather than literal representations.
Paula Scher said "When you look at your music collection today on your iPod, you are looking at Alex Steinweiss's big idea."
A really great album cover is Lou Reed's Set the Twilight Reeling, designed by Stefan Sagmeister:
The image of this cover is eye-catching, which is what an album cover should be. The lyrics on the cover are very personal to the singer, so arranging them on his face is like a way of him expressing every emotion in that song all at once. We show our emotions and feelings through facial expressions so not only is this visually arresting but also very symbolic of the music.
The blue tint of his face adds to the emotion of the music and also makes his eyes darker so they stand out more which is good because it seems like he is staring you down and projecting his own emotions onto you, just like he does through his songs. So overall, this album cover really works because it stands out and expresses the emotion and themes of the artist's music.
The blue tint of his face adds to the emotion of the music and also makes his eyes darker so they stand out more which is good because it seems like he is staring you down and projecting his own emotions onto you, just like he does through his songs. So overall, this album cover really works because it stands out and expresses the emotion and themes of the artist's music.
A more cryptic album cover is A Perfect Circle's Mer de Noms, realised by Steven R. Gilmore:
The title of the album is french for 'sea of names' and the symbols translate to 'the waterfall of first names'. This is because many of the songs are dedicated to people the lead singer, Maynard James Keenan, knew with song titles like 'Judith' and 'Rose'. While that is a sentimental thought, the music in terms of sound is quite dark (hence the dark colours and fiery orange). The lyrical themes are also quite dark and poetic, in fact an in-joke from the singer can be seen in that without the space in between 'mer' and 'de' the title of the album can be roughly translated as 'Shit Names' (Merde Noms). What I really like about this cover is its seemingly simple grungy design yet fully symbolic meaning. The large centered logo is my favourite part because of its irony. A big part of their music is about being different and the divided circle is a great way of expressing the brokeness and depression the singer has felt in a simplistic way. The band name is 'A Perfect Circle' and is always accompanied by an imperfect circle, an imperfect whole.
The large recognisable logo is a sure way to sell to 'A Perfect Circle' fans.
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