Record Cover Designer
While graphic artists’ work may have been popular within their own circles, their creations got out to the masses when they began putting their artwork on the album covers of well known musicians.
Storm Thorgerson is well known for designing numerous Pink Floyd covers, as well as covers for Alan Parsons and Peter Gabriel among others. Industry pioneer Blue Note’s Reid Miles, defined the visual style of jazz music covers with his brilliant use of typography.
Through the 50-year history of album cover art, the canvas has shrunk from the 12-inch square of a record to less than a napkin-sized compact disc cover.
With more and more music converting to digital form and people being able to download entire albums at once, where does this leave the graphic artist?
Words from an Artist
Michael Wrycraft is a Juno award winning graphic artist who has created covers for the likes of Gordon Lightfoot as well as a tribute album to Johnny Cash. Despite the increase of downloading, he says he’s never been busier.
“The transition from vinyl to CD took place 20 years ago,” said Wrycraft, “Most of the album covers I’ve designed have been on CD size canvas, so I don’t feel like I’m missing out.”
“It seems like CD sales haven’t declined because of digital, and when people are downloading entire albums, the artwork is still available online as well.”
There are two types of album cover designers, freelance and in-house.
Wrycraft, like the majority of graphic artists, falls under the freelance category.
A freelance album cover designer is hired by the artist, a record label or an independent musician. “I’ve worked with the most famous to the most unknown, so it’s always a bit of a different story,” said Wrycraft.
Having a musician and a graphic artist come together to try to put together an album cover, there is always the possibility of struggle for creative control. The band or musician has one vision, while the artist’s vision is something completely different.
In the 50s, 60s and 70s, the aim of art directors was to produce a cover that would visually describe the music and would actually relate to the artist and the message their music was sending.
Artists today are given more freedom to do what they want with the album cover, but at the same time trying to uphold the credo that was set out by their predecessors.
“Unless there is a very specific concept that the band wants, it’s always different,” said Wrycraft. “I try to draw inspiration more from the music, than the artist themselves, because when you design for the artist you tend to stereotype. For example, if it’s a country artist you’re going to think ‘okay, let’s put a picture of a guitar.’”
Where the art form is headed
An album designer can have any number of projects on his plate at once, where some are in the beginning stages, some are in the middle and some are ready to be shipped out.
“At any given time, I’m working on eight to 12 covers,” said Wrycraft,
”You can’t just do an album cover in one hit. You have to build it up and come back to it a few times, because you might come up with ideas from different projects you’re working on.”
Wrycraft’s words may be inspiring to up-and-coming graphic artists who yearn for a job where they have such a big role in defining a band’s image, but the future may not be as bright as they may think.
In today’s western world, ruled by capitalism, it seems as though it’s the artist who sells the CDs not the music.
Many of the big names in the music industry seem happy to just slap their face on the cover with a fancy font and that’s more than enough to sell a million copies.
It was exciting for me to learn that Shutterfly is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. I’ve been a customer since 2002 and I had no idea they were only two years old when I started ordering prints, enlargements and books from them. I can’t remember if they even offered books then — oh yes, I think the first books I ordered were called Snapbooks and they came with a neat spiral binding.
When I was asked if I would write a blog on my favorite birthday books, I said “No Problem”. But then I checked to see how many of birthday key words there were in the Shutterfly Gallery. Would you believe 3,908 projects had “birthday” selected as a tag when I checked last week?
You’d be correct to think that I didn’t select these from the 4,000 other Gallery birthday books. But I did pick books based on a good use of a theme or by showing special attributes that I hope will help you in designing your own book, whether on the birthday theme or not.
My first selection is Avery – Year 1, an 8×8 book by LauraK276. It illustrates a terrific way of showing the growth of her daughter. The author says “Each month on the 11th day, I took the same pic of my daughter in the same chair with the same teddy. It became increasingly difficult to take the picture as she did not want to sit still”. Each of her monthly photographs are on the left-side page, with a variety of candid shots on the right-side page.
Another very popular use for these books is for viewing birthday celebrations over the years. When I looked at the following book I noticed it had gathered 14 comments – it is a tribute to the author’s mother on her 62nd birthday. The author, pantantonia, calls it a journey through the years of her mother’s life. This 8×8 book is a wonderful record and gift for her mother.
A great cover design led me to feature this birthday book. Using a pink background with a slight tilt to the photo makes for a wonderful cover. I liked the same background, in pink with Happy Birthday repeated in a subtle way. It must make a powerful impact in the 12×12 size. The title is “CEL My First Year” and the author is Shelley L. One suggestion I’d make is the use of a larger type size to better balance the large photos.
I hope my selection has given you some ideas, and if you have any birthday photo book inspiration of your own, let me know by commenting on this article.
