4 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 4 album covers documented under the "digital art" design theme, spanning the 1980s, 1990s, 2010s. These covers sit within the r&b, electronic, alternative, rock tradition and feature work by FKA twigs, The Dismemberment Plan, The Prodigy, New Order. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.
Jesse Kanda created LP1's uncanny portrait from photographs of FKA twigs, sculpting and altering her head in 3D, changing texture and lighting, and then painting over the image. Release credits name FKA twigs and Phil Lee for design and Kanda for photography.
Travis Morrison made the strange digital cover of Emergency & I himself, pushing the pixels at a time when some people around the band thought the result looked terrible. Its warped cartoon world was consciously influenced by Fantastic Planet, using surreal imagery to express the anxiety and alienation running through the album.
Alex Jenkins turned a sourced dancing-crab photograph into The Prodigy's confrontational 1997 sleeve after Liam Howlett rejected a photographed doner-kebab concept at the last minute. Jenkins enlarged the raised claw until the tiny beach animal looked like it was giving the world a rude gesture.
New Order's Technique cover centers on a brightly colored cherub garden ornament that Peter Saville spotted while browsing antique shops on London's Pimlico Road. Saville rented the statue for the shoot, turning an antique object into a vivid, deliberately excessive image for the band's 1989 album.