sleeve design: February 2008

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.

The most famous pedestrian crossing in the world


The Beatles Abbey Road (1969)	The Rutles Shabby Road (1969)	George Benson The other Side of Abbey Road (1969)

Booker T and the MGs McLemore Avenue (1970)	New York City Soulful Road (1974)	The Red Hot Chili Peppers Abbey Road EP (1988)

Ivor Biggun Partners in Grime (1989)	Paul McCartney Paul is Live (1993)	Kapanga Un Asado En Abbey Road (2005)

Various Exotic Beatles Vol.3 (2005)	Punkles For Sale (2006)	Kanye West Late Orchestration: Live at Abbey Road Studios (2006)

United Nations United Nations (Original Cover) (2008)	Various Here Comes The Sun: A Reggae Tribute To The Beatles (2009)