Cover to Cover

by Matt Durnan 

Think for a moment about your favourite CD. What pops into your head first?  A particular song? Or the image on the cover?

If you weren’t thinking about the cover at first, you probably are now.

While the art form of album design has a fairly short history, it has spawned arguably some of the most memorable works of our day.

The Beatles crossing Abbey Road may be the most imitated album cover in the history of recorded music.  Likewise, who doesn’t recognize the image of an animated prism reflecting light as the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of The Moon? How about a naked baby swimming after a dollar bill as Nirvana’s Nevermind?

The art form of creating album covers is regarded as the brainchild of Alex Steinweiss of Columbia Records. In 1939, Steinweiss came up with the idea of replacing the standard labels on album covers with original artwork.  Some of the world’s most talented graphic artists started to gain some well deserved exposure.

While graphic artists’ work may have been popular within their own circles, their creations got out to the masses when they began putting their artwork on the album covers of well known musicians.

Storm Thorgerson is well known for designing numerous Pink Floyd covers, as well as covers for Alan Parsons and Peter Gabriel among others. Industry pioneer Blue Note’s Reid Miles, defined the visual style of jazz music covers with his brilliant use of typography.

Through the 50-year history of album cover art, the canvas has shrunk from the 12-inch square of a record to  less than a napkin-sized compact disc cover.

With more and more music converting to digital form and people being able to download entire albums at once, where does this leave the graphic artist?

Michael Wrycraft is a Juno award winning graphic artist who has created covers for the likes of Gordon Lightfoot as well as a tribute album to Johnny Cash. Despite the increase of downloading, he says he’s never been busier.

“The transition from vinyl to CD took place 20 years ago,” said Wrycraft, “Most of the album covers I’ve designed have been on CD size canvas, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out.”

“It seems like CD sales haven’t declined because of digital, and when people are downloading entire albums, the artwork is still available online as well.”

There are two types of album cover designers, freelance and in-house.

Wrycraft, like the majority of graphic artists, falls under the freelance category.

A freelance album cover designer is hired by the artist, a record label or an independent musician. “I’ve worked with the most famous to the most unknown, so it’s always a bit of a different story,” said Wrycraft.

Having a musician and a graphic artist come together to try to put together an album cover, there is always the possibility of  struggle for creative control. The band or musician has one vision, while the artist’s vision is something completely different.

In the 50s, 60s and 70s, the aim of art directors was to produce a cover that would visually describe the music and would actually relate to the artist and the message their music was sending.
Artists today are given more freedom to do what they want with the album cover, but at the same time trying to uphold the credo that was set out by their predecessors.

“Unless there is a very specific concept that the band wants, it’s always different,” said Wrycraft. “I try to draw inspiration more from the music, than the artist themselves, because when you design for the artist you tend to stereotype. For example, if it’s a country artist you’re going to think ‘okay, let’s put a picture of a guitar.’”

An album designer can have any number of projects on his plate at once, where some are in the beginning stages, some are in the middle and some are ready to be shipped out.

“At any given time, I’m working on eight to 12 covers,” said Wrycraft,

”You can’t just do an album cover in one hit. You have to build it up and come back to it a few times, because you might come up with ideas from different projects you’re working on.”

Wrycraft’s words may be inspiring to up-and-coming graphic artists who yearn for a job where they have such a big role in defining a band’s image, but the future may not be as bright as they may think.

In today’s western world, ruled by capitalism, it seems as though it’s the artist who sells the CDs not the music.

Many of the big names in the music industry seem happy to just slap their face on the cover with a fancy font and that’s more than enough to sell a million copies.