Subscription: Absolutely free!

To Be Read

January 23, 2007

No Cover

I grew up in the age of the Compact Disc. Records were always somewhat foreign to me. More than anything, I appreciated them more for their cover designs than sound quality. Since we've entered the digital age of music collections, I've been wondering about the state of album design.

It wasn't until a friend of mine introduced me to the cover designs of Blue Note Records that my breath was taken away by the medium. I had never seen such innovation and forward-thinking in cover designs, and these were from the 50s and 60s! Even through the 70s and beyond Blue Note seemed to stay innovative. These were works of art and captured the music beautifully.

There has been a progression in album cover design throughout the decades. While I'm no expert, it seems to me the driving force behind the evolution and changes is the technology in which we listen to our music. As new technology enters the frame, the size and scope of its cover design changes.

First (at least we'll start here), there were vinyl record collections. My father has an extensive collection of records. From the Beatles to Johnny Cash. Going through his old collection I'm always amazed to see such cool cover designs. Music was collected and cherished. I wish I could relate to sitting for hours scanning through albums while listening, but alas our lives are too fast these days for anything so satisfying. Vinyls gave designers a canvas.

Folks like Blue Note Records andFactory Records brought album design to new heights. The canvas was large and seeking new directions. The opportunities, from what I can tell, seemed abundant. The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, for example, utilized gatefold covers (a folded double cover), inserts, and lyric sheets. These new bonuses made albums even more appealing and collectible. The album cover became a platform for artists and designers.

Hipgnosis became well known for their work on rock albums, for bands like Pink Floyd, Genesis, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Black Sabbath. Not such a bad resume, huh? The group consisted primarily of Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell and Peter Christopherson. Incidentally, Thorgerson went on to design more album covers, after the group disbanded in 1983, including my personal favorite album cover of all time, Audioslave.

Then came 8-tracks. Anyway...

Between the 70s and 90s. compact cassettes were a viable solution for LPs. Personally, I never liked them. Cassettes look goofy, feel blocky, and pretty much are a pain in the ass. My favorites were those found on the floor of a car, never to be picked up.

Of course, I can't be all negative towards cassettes. Without them, we would never have boomboxes.

Coming from the age of vinyls to cassettes, I can only imagine what a contrast it was to design for such a smaller size. The canvas, in short, was limiting. I'm sure it presented new and exciting challenges for designers, but the medium itself had become much smaller.

Then in 1982 came the Compact Disc and the digital music age. Music was now information contained on a shiny circle thing. Better sound quality (or worse, depending on your attitude) was the key to its success. The canvas size suddenly felt a little less alien and closer to vinyls. The dimension was definitely similar, but it was still quite smaller than vinyls. New challenges for designers, and still little breathing room for space. The impact of a 12" canvas was gone.

Now we've come to the chapter of digital age where we no longer need to keep a huge collection in our living rooms. Everything is downloadable. Music doesn't have to be held physically in one's hands anymore. Each track is a single listing on a computer screen. This representation is too strict and plain for music.

So now we have iTunes popping the album's cover into a tiny corner. It is only an image of an existing album cover. The problem to me is in the lack of interaction. It's a thumbnail of a pre-existing design. Sitting down and looking at real visuals while listening to an album was half the fun.

However, the experience of listening to music has changed. The world has sped up too fast for sitting down and looking. We spin our iPod's wheel for the right tune and keep walking. So where do we find the next answer to a new medium? Do we keep using snapshots of pre-existing album covers as simple representations? Certainly, nobody's complained about that solution. It's perfectly acceptable. Apple has already made small baby steps in Internet-exclusive design for albums. They might just be small graphics, but they're also a sign.

I think the day will come where even the CD will become absolete. Hell, aren't we almost there already? When more music selection exists on the Internet, what's the point of going to the record store? Sure, the album cover as an expression of design will always exist through alternative venues. But what happens when we're no longer walking along aisles and aisles of CDs? What happens when we're browsing the Internet for the next album? And if an album cover isn't needed, what will we use to visually tag the album on our computers?

The first logical thought is offering an interactive solution. As the Internet has shown, we're only bound by a monitor's size and resolution. We're unlimited by our choices in animations, fonts, colors, etc. It would seem a natural step to design interactive albums that keep the listener glued to unique experiences.

Then again, I've heard people say the "album" is becoming absolete. While that's hard to imagine, I've also read singles are becoming more popular. Eek! Quick thumbnails for each song? A 16 pixel by 16 pixel representation of a song toiled on for months? Strange but possibly true. Designers were given 12" of space to catch our eyes. Now we're down to dozens of pixels.

The next progression should be interesting, but one thing is true--album design will definitely evolve in the next decade. That much is certain. Hell, a monkey knows that. For what it's worth, album visuals should stay representations of the music.

Clamoring

Joshua Lane said:

I still enjoy owning a physical compact disc (artwork and all) over a digital copy. Of course, I realize it's only a matter of time before I'm just like my parents who didn't want to let go of vinyl in the 80's.

Still, it definitely WILL be interesting to see how the next decade or so handles album design/art and the like. I'd love to see some interactivity with "booklets" and whatnot... some music video inclusion, behind-the-scenes of the recording process, etc, etc. I think iTunes offers "digital booklets" with some of their albums, but I've never purchased those, so I'm not sure what they're like.

Blake said:

Joshua: Yeah I forgot to mention about those digital booklets. From the few I've accidentally downloaded they look to be simple PDFs. I think it's a great start, but kind of stale...they need to be more interactive! Like live links, sound clips, animations, etc.

Being a designer I'll always collect albums...can't help it.






    
Body:

Preview

Somebody Might Say: