OUGD402 - Creative Review - The Music Issue

OUGD402 - Creative Review - The Music Issue

The January 2017 issue of Creative Review - ‘The Music Issue” - has an article ranking the best record sleeves of 2016. The multitude of sleeve designs from a range of different artists and genres provided a lot really interesting insights into how design can convey music.

Pet Shop Boys - Super

This design is simplicity and minimalism at its absolute finest, simply utilising a fluorescent circle and the word Super. According to Rachel Steven, the writer of the article, the circle is supposed to demonstrate how upbeat and full of energy the record is. A noteworthy point is the decision to release numerous variants of the cover, simply changing the colours of the circle and type depending on what format or platform the album is bought on. This is very interesting because it generates interest in seeing and/or collecting all the variants and probably increases sales on platforms such as vinyl or cd which lose out to digital streaming the days. Its comparable to producing variant covers for a magazine to try and produce more interest in buying the physical publication. 

Bon Iver - 22, A Million

Created by designer Eric Timothy Carlson with a lot of input from musician Justin Vernon, this cover displays a range of meticulously researched and hand crafted symbols that represent each song on the record. This method of visually interpreting music promotes listeners to try and decrypt hidden meanings of songs and listen more intently. They were also a good promotional tool, being shared across social media platforms as well as being made in to large scale murals in cities such as Berlin, Amsterdam and Melbourne.

David Bowie - Blackstar

According to the designer of this cover Jonathan Barnbrook , this design stands out for its simplicity however under the surface, it is anything but simple. This sleeve for Bowie’s final record demonstrates a simple matte black surface with eloquent yet minimal design elements such as utilising stars to create the letterforms for ‘Bowie’ or a large star cut out revealing the record underneath, however upon further inspection, fans started to notice ‘hidden surprises’ when applying processes to the record sleeve such as exposing it to UV light or sun light. As a method of generating interest in buying the actual vinyl record instead of streaming the album, this is very clever because it makes it this coveted mysterious object by taking advantage of it being a physical thing which these processes can be applied to.