sleeve design: September 2007

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.

Shaded font on cardboard


Soft Machine Third (1970)	Mooney Suzuki Have Mercy (2007)

The first never mind


The Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks (yellow/pink) (1977)	Die Roten Rosen Never Mind the Hosen (1987)	Les Sex Bidochons On s'en Bat les Couilles (1989)


The Sex Pistols Never Mind the Bollocks (pink/green) (1977)	Opium Jukebox Never Mind the Bhangra (2002)	Pink Merkin Disregard the Genitals (2014)


Max Pashm Never Mind the Balkans (2009)	United Nations Never Mind the Bombings, Here's Your Six Figures (2010)	The Ukrainians Never Mind the Cossacks (2014)