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.

Coloured squares








Beastie Boys

Hot Sauce Committe Part Two (2011)

Orchestre Tout Puissant Marcel Duchamp

The Thing that Everything Else is About (2014)

Movement








The Orb

The Orb's Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld (1991)

Urge Overkill

Exit the Dragon (1995)

Phrenology








The Roots

Phrenology (2002)

Melanin 9

Magna Carta (2012)