sleeve design

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.

Run the Voodoo down


Miles Davis Bitches Brew (1970)	Acid Mothers Temple and The Melting Paraiso U.F.O. Son of a Bitches Brew (2012)

Living room


Ray Conniff, His Orchestra and Chorus Hifi Companion (1966)	Morcheeba Big Calm (1998)

Dobro in the clouds


Dire Straits Brothers in Arms (1985)	Brewer's Droop The Booze Brothers (1973/1989)

Fog and vegetation


The Frames The Cost (2006)	Arclab No Spectre (2007)

V for victory


Denim Back in Denim (1992)	The Soup Dragons Hotwired (1992)	Stone Temple Pilots Stone Temple Pilots (2010)

Calypso


Robert Mitchum Calypso... Is Like So (1957)	Philippe Lavil Calypso (2007)

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)

Back and front sepia


Eurythmics Peace (1999)	James Getting away with it (2001)

Plain white writing on black background


I Am Kloot I Am Kloot (2003)	Mass Hysteria Mass Hysteria (2005)

Profile Drawing


Gilbert Montagné The Fool (1971)	Sébastien Tellier Sessions (2006)

Man with car


Nas Street Dreams (1996)	Metronomy Nights out (2008)

Black hair and red lips


Norah Jones ...Little Broken Hearts (2012)	Jenifer Ma Déclaration (2013)

Japanese sun


Jimi Hendrix Experience Axis: Bold as Love (1967)	The High Dials Anthems for Doomed Youth (2010)	Tom Caruana Presents Wu-Tang vs. Jimi Hendrix Black Gold (2011)