28 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 28 album covers documented under the "illustration" design theme, spanning the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2000s, 2010s, 2020s. These covers sit within the hip-hop, rock, electronic, pop, alternative, indie, r&b, soul, funk, punk, reggae, jazz tradition and feature work by Bad Bunny, Tame Impala, Gorillaz, Sufjan Stevens 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.
A frowning one-eyed heart against a vibrant beach paradise became one of the most tattooed album covers in recent memory. Designer Adrian Hernandez turned Bad Bunny's pandemic sketch into a cultural touchstone — over 150 fans got the image inked the day after the album dropped.
Robert Beatty's abstract image of swirling liquid in vivid colors visualizes the album's theme of overwhelming change — something solid becoming liquid, a form dissolving and reforming as something new. Not chaos, but metamorphosis.
Jamie Hewlett's iconic four-panel portrait of the virtual band's animated characters pays direct homage to The Beatles' Let It Be cover. The quartered black background displays side profiles of 2-D, Murdoc, Noodle, and Russel in simple sans-serif typography.
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.
Kanye West's mascot bear was born from designer Eric Johnson's interpretation of the dropout theme, creating one of hip-hop's most endearing and merchandisable visual identities through simple cartoon illustration.
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.
Chicago artist Damon Locks illustrated the cover using Trojan War imagery, centered around the iconic Trojan Horse. Layout designer Jason Farrell arranged the visual elements. The concept was based on vague band descriptions of espionage and chaos.
Air's dreamy debut featured a mysterious retro-futuristic cover that perfectly captured the album's space-age bachelor pad aesthetic. The vintage-style illustration became an instant icon of late 90s electronic music design.
The warm, sepia-toned cover resembles a wood carving or desk etching, referencing Carter G. Woodson's 1933 book 'The Mis-Education of the Negro' — a deliberate statement about authenticity and substance in late-1990s pop and hip-hop.
Chris Bilheimer's surreal illustration of a couple floating above the sea with a drum replacing one figure's head — inspired by a vintage postcard — connects to the album's hallucinatory exploration of Anne Frank, innocence, and historical trauma.
D.L. Warfield's richly detailed illustration fuses the zodiac signs Aquarius and Gemini into a psychedelic cosmic landscape — signaling that OutKast was operating on a different creative plane than virtually any other hip-hop act of the era.
Thane Kerner's abstract illustration for Dave Matthews Band's breakthrough sophomore album has become synonymous with the band's visual identity. The enigmatic cover features flowing organic forms in muted earth tones, complemented by C. Taylor Crothers' band photography.
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.'
A Tribe Called Quest transformed their album cover into an interactive experience by hiding over 70 hip-hop luminaries in a burgundy crowd illustration that fans are still discovering today.
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.
Raymond Pettibon's stark black-and-white ink illustration — based on a photograph of witnesses from the Moors Murders case — features a speech bubble about stealing, killing, and hitting the road. The confrontational art was a statement: no aesthetic sanitizing for a major label.
An explosion of day-glo color — peace signs, daisies, Pop Art graphics — was a visual manifesto for the D.A.I.S.Y. Age, declaring that hip-hop could be playful, conscious, and joyful in an era dominated by images of urban toughness.
The iconic cross-and-skulls cover wasn't the original artwork - that was a controversial robot rape painting by Robert Williams. When retailers refused to stock it, Geffen moved Williams' art inside and used Billy White Jr.'s tattoo design instead.
A giant robot holds the band members' bloodied bodies in this shocking cover adapted from a 1953 sci-fi magazine illustration. The artist who painted it had no idea it would become one of rock's most disturbing album covers.
Canadian prog artist Hugh Syme created Rush's iconic Starman logo for this breakthrough album, using his friend Bobby King as the nude model. The gatefold includes an awkward band photo shoot in white clothing.
Paula Scher designed this iconic cover featuring guitar-shaped spaceships fleeing an exploding planet. Illustrator Roger Huyssen drew the spaceships while Gerard Huerta created the lettering. Despite becoming one of rock's most recognizable covers, Scher considers it mediocre work.
Alan Aldridge's airbrush masterpiece drew inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights. Created with Harry Willock, the psychedelic artwork surrounds Elton John with mythical creatures in vivid detail.
The design firm Hipgnosis created one of the most recognizable images in music history: a prism dispersing white light into a spectrum of color. The band wanted something simple, clinical, and precise — a stark contrast to the psychedelic art dominating progressive rock.
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.
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.
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.
Alex Steinweiss created this iconic painted cover depicting Sinatra alone under street lamps on a deserted night-time street, perfectly matching the album's melancholy mood of lost love and loneliness.