Behind the Covers
⌕

“electronic”

6 cover stories in our archive

Behind the Covers' archive includes 6 album covers documented under the "electronic" design theme, spanning the 1980s, 1990s, 2010s. These covers sit within the electronic, pop, alternative tradition and feature work by Jamie xx, Grimes, Boards of Canada, Stereolab and others. 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.

In Colour by Jamie xx — album cover art

In Colour by Jamie xx (2015)

Jamie xx built In Colour around a radial spectrum of saturated colour and a tilted white rectangle taken from one leg of The xx's X. Jamie Smith said he designed the cover to represent the different shades of the album and his earlier releases; Phil Lee is also credited for artwork. The sleeve is driven by colour and geometry, not front-cover typography.

Label
Young Turks
Designer
Jamie Smith (Jamie xx) · Phil Lee — artwork/design collaboration
Genre
Electronic
Decade
2010s
Read the full story →
Visions by Grimes — album cover art

Visions by Grimes (2012)

Grimes drew the Visions cover herself in a two-day burst, aiming for something beautiful, violent and dense enough to reward close looking. Claire Boucher filled the sleeve with skulls, eyes, symbols, text and science-fiction imagery, turning the album into an audio-visual world rather than a record with a decorative front.

Label
4AD
Designer
Claire Boucher
Genre
Electronic, Pop, Alternative
Decade
2010s
Read the full story →
Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada — album cover art

Music Has the Right to Children by Boards of Canada (1998)

Boards of Canada's Music Has the Right to Children uses a faded family photograph with every face erased into a pale blur. The image was adapted from a real family photo taken at Banff Springs in Alberta, Canada, then transformed by the duo into the perfect visual companion to an album built from childhood memory, educational-media nostalgia and unease.

Label
Warp / Skam
Designer
Boards of Canada
Genre
Electronic
Decade
1990s
Read the full story →
Dots and Loops by Stereolab — album cover art

Dots and Loops by Stereolab (1997)

Stereolab's Dots and Loops cover turns a few looping green forms on yellow into a compact manifesto for the record. Designer Julian House developed the sleeve collaboratively from source material brought in by Tim Gane, while the title itself refers both to Norman McLaren's experimental films Dots and Loops and to the band's new use of digital editing and musical loops.

Label
Duophonic / Elektra
Designer
Julian House
Genre
Alternative, Electronic
Decade
1990s
Read the full story →
...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin — album cover art

...I Care Because You Do by Aphex Twin (1995)

An oil painting of Richard D. James's face in classical portraiture style — his broad, slightly sinister grin rendered with Old Master technique — satirizes fine art conventions while establishing the Aphex Twin's unsettling grin as a recurring visual motif.

Label
Warp
Designer
Richard D. James
Genre
Electronic
Decade
1990s
Read the full story →
Computer World by Kraftwerk — album cover art

Computer World by Kraftwerk (1981)

Kraftwerk's Computer World puts an old computer terminal at the center of the sleeve and places the band's four faces inside its screen. Emil Schult's design made computing look simultaneously domestic, bureaucratic and uncanny years before the personal computer became ordinary.

Label
EMI
Designer
Emil Schult
Photographer
Günter Fröhling
Genre
Electronic
Decade
1980s
Read the full story →

Related design themes