24 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 24 album covers documented under the "hand drawn" design theme, spanning the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the metal, country, reggae, rock, punk, hip-hop, blues, alternative, jazz, pop, indie, funk tradition and feature work by Danzig, Morgan Wallen, Jimmy Cliff, The Louvin Brothers 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.
The demonic skull adorning Danzig's debut was drawn by Glenn Danzig himself, but lifted from Marvel comic artist Michael Golden's cover for Crystar #8. The minimalist white skull on black background became one of metal's most iconic covers without any text or band identification.
Morgan Wallen's courtroom sketch-inspired cover transforms legal trouble into art, creating an unprecedented album aesthetic that toes the line between accountability and artistic statement.
The iconic album cover for this reggae soundtrack featured artwork by John Bryant and sleeve design by London's CCS Associates. Bryant's vibrant illustration depicts Jimmy Cliff with dual pistols, using hand-drawn typography rendered in Bottleneck typeface with colorful gradients.
One of the most infamous album covers ever created, featuring a 12-foot plywood Satan cutout designed by Ira Louvin and burning kerosene-soaked tires in a rock quarry. The brothers nearly got burned during the photo shoot when kerosene-soaked rocks exploded.
George Hardie transformed Sam Shere's iconic 1937 Hindenburg disaster photograph into a haunting stipple illustration using a technical pen, creating one of rock's most powerful visual statements for just £60.
Klaus Voormann's revolutionary black-and-white collage combines pen-and-ink drawings with photographs, using the Beatles' flowing hair to create a psychedelic masterpiece that won the first Grammy Award for rock album artwork in 1967.
The iconic cyclone-like design with a spark plug center was drawn by Big Chief guitarist Mark Dancey after a casual backstage invitation from Soundgarden members Kim Thayil and Matt Cameron in 1991.
Ian Beck's watercolor artwork depicting Elton John stepping through a poster into the yellow brick road became one of rock's most iconic covers. The triptych design featured individual illustrations for each song and was inspired by 1930s Hollywood glamour and Art Deco aesthetics.
East Bay artist Richie Bucher created this chaos-filled cartoon depicting dogs and monkeys flinging excrement from Berkeley rooftops, working only from the album title and his childhood associations with the word 'dookie.'
Frank Maddocks collaborated with the band to create this iconic stencil-graffiti soldier with dragonfly wings, inspired by Banksy. Mike Shinoda drew the original soldier illustration, while Maddocks executed the stenciling and added the wings.
A candid band photo taken by Bob Fogerty shows CCR in an off-duty moment, complete with a handwritten 3RD GENERATION sign - a cheeky response to critic Ralph Gleason's dismissive review. The uncool, lumberjack aesthetic perfectly captured their working-class appeal.
The golden fist and gun logo that became hip-hop's most recognizable symbol was hand-drawn by underground comic artist Nick Gazin in his cramped Brooklyn apartment. What started as a quick sketch became an iconic emblem that fans tattoo on their bodies and spray-paint on walls worldwide.
A hand-drawn children's book cover that broke industry rules by helping an independent mixtape win three Grammy Awards. Designer Brandon Breaux created crayon-style artwork that perfectly captured Chance's gospel-influenced sound and Chicago roots.
Underground cartoonist Robert Crumb created this hand-drawn comic book cover for just $600, turning down Columbia's slick photography concept. His whimsical cartoon style became one of rock's most beloved covers.
Queen's frontman Freddie Mercury personally designed this ornate crest-style logo, drawing from his art school training to create one of rock's most heraldic album covers. The intricate coat of arms incorporates each band member's astrological sign into a regal emblem.
Metallica's electric chair artwork was created by band members themselves after their record label couldn't afford professional designers. The stark, hand-drawn imagery became one of metal's most recognizable covers despite being born from budget constraints.
Jack White drew inspiration from a 1960s circus poster to create one of rock's most playful covers. The vibrant red and pink elephant against stark white background perfectly captured the band's theatrical garage rock aesthetic while maintaining their strict three-color palette.
The cross of skulls you know was never the first choice. Guns N' Roses wanted a robot rapist on the front of their debut, until America's record stores said no. The replacement began as a tattoo on Axl Rose's right arm.
Frank Sinatra stands alone under blue streetlight, cigarette burning, fedora pushed back in resignation. Painted to mirror an album about loneliness and lost love, this 1955 cover plays like a film noir poster, and it would resurface decades later in Vanilla Sky, in a syringe-wielding parody, and in Kurt Elling's careful re-pose.
A Columbia producer heard it and snapped, 'It's a piece of shit! It's not produced.' Recorded cheap in a Garland, Texas studio with barely more than guitar, piano, and drums, Willie Nelson's spare murder-ballad concept album turned a dismissed 'demo' into the record that made him a superstar.
Artist Divya Srinivasan created the intricate illustrated cover depicting Illinois themes including Lincoln, Al Capone, the Sears Tower, and originally Superman—until copyright concerns led to multiple versions with balloons and eventually an empty sky.
A heartbroken cartoon heart with one swollen eye stands alone on a golden dune while dolphins leap over a candy-pink sky. It became the year's best-selling album. The strange, tender story of how Bad Bunny's drawing turned into Un Verano Sin Ti.
A keyboardist asked for something as classy as a chocolate box. What he got was a beam of white light splitting into a rainbow against pure black, a design pulled from a 1963 physics textbook that would end up on more T-shirts than almost any image in rock. Here's how Pink Floyd's prism came to be.
George Clinton called Pedro Bell an 'urban Hieronymus Bosch' who 'inverted psychedelia through the ghetto.' On Funkadelic's biggest album, Bell didn't just draw a cover — he built the visual myth of P-Funk itself, signing on as an 'electric marker heathen of speedomatic dabblings.'