3 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "digital manipulation" design theme, spanning the 1990s, 2000s, 2010s. These covers sit within the alternative, indie, electronic, hip-hop tradition and feature work by Tame Impala, OutKast, Björk. 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.
Australian designer Leif Podhajsky created this kaleidoscopic masterpiece by digitally manipulating a simple photograph of trees into a swirling vortex that perfectly captures the album's psychedelic introspection.
OutKast's Stankonia cover photographs Big Boi and Andre 3000 in front of a huge black-and-white American flag with inverted stars. Michael Lavine shot the image and Mike Rush handled art direction and design. Andre 3000 later explained that the flag idea came to him on an airplane: stripping away its familiar color let OutKast themselves become the color in the image.
Björk's face emerges from a sculptural ruff collar like a futuristic Elizabethan portrait, created through painstaking digital manipulation that took months to perfect. The image merged high fashion with alien beauty, establishing a new template for electronic music artwork.