Would Sgt. Pepper's be exactly the same without Peter Blake's cover ? At a time when full-length records do not mean much any longer and album covers even less, I found interesting to make a website on sleeve design. Long before videos, record covers were the visual embodiment of music, a way to put images on sound. I remember having spent hours as a teenager detailing the cover of records while listening to them. Later on, I realised that some of them had things in common in their design, revealing either a mere sign of the times or a more deliberate connection. Some records even obviously copied famous sleeves, as a tribute or as a mockery. Here is a collection of record covers I came across, which share some common visual features.

Red old-fashioned design








Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

Specter at the Feast (2013)

The Strokes

Come down Machine (2013)

Can the can








Can

Ege Bamyasi (1972)

Stephen Malkmus and Friends

Can's Ege Bamyasi (2013)

Two body shape with ring halos








UNKLE

War Stories (2007)

Massive Attack

Splitting the Atom EP (2009)

Giraffes














Antonio Carlos Jobim

Wave (1967)

Freddy Henry

Get it out in the Open (1979)

Silver Screen

The Greatest Story Never Told (2005)










Carlos Berlanga

Indicios (1994)

Laid Back

Hole in the Sky (1990)


B/w duet








Slow Children

Slow Children (1981)

Lou Reed/John Cale

Songs for Drella (1990)