Cover art
From Hey Kids Comics
Cover art is the illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, comic book, video game (box art), DVD, CD, videotape, or music album. The art has a primarily commercial function, i.e. to promote the product it is displayed on, but can have also have an aesthetic function, and may be artistically connected to the product, such as with art by the creator of the product.
Album cover art[edit | edit source]
Album cover art is artwork created for a music album. Iconic album cover art includes Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, and The Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Abbey Road and their "White Album". Albums can have cover art created by the musician, as with Joni Mitchell's Clouds,[1] or by an associated musician, such as Bob Dylan's artwork for the cover of Music From Big Pink, by The Band, Dylan's backup band's first album. Artists known for their album cover art include Alex Steinweiss, an early pioneer in album cover art, Roger Dean, and the Hipgnosis studio. Some album art may cause controversy because of nudity, offending churches, trademark or others.[2] There have been numerous books documenting album cover art, particularly rock and jazz album covers.[3][4] Alex Steinweiss was an art director and graphic designer who brought custom artwork to record alum covers and invented the first packaging for long-playing records.[2]
Book cover[edit | edit source]
Whether printed on the dust jacket of a hardcover book, or on the cover of a paperback, book cover art has had books written on the subject, and numerous artists have become noted for their book cover art, including Richard M. Powers and Chip Kidd.
Magazine cover[edit | edit source]
Magazine cover artists include Art Spiegelman, who modernized the look of The New Yorker magazine, and his predecessor Rea Irvin, who created the Eustace Tilly iconic character for the magazine.
Popular music scores (early 20th century)[edit | edit source]
Sheet music cover artists include Frederick S. Manning, William Austin Starmer, and Frederick Waite Starmer, all three of whom worked for Jerome H. Remick. Other prolific artists included Albert Wilfred Barbelle, André De Takacs, and Gene Buck.
Gallery[edit | edit source]
- Ivory book cover MS Douce 176.jpg
Ivory book cover with scenes from the life of Christ circa 800 AD
- Title design of A song of the English (1909).png
Illustration to an edition of Kipling's A song of the English (1909)
- OlympicClubTimesDemocratHeadline.JPG
Gentleman Jim Corbett and John L. Sullivan at Olympic Club, New Orleans
- Vanity Fair June 1914.jpg
Cover art for Vanity Fair magazine
- Vanity Fair cover by Ethel Caroline Rundquist 1916.jpg
Skater with scarf. January 1916 Vanity Fair cover by Ethel Caroline Rundquist.
- The Spider April 1934.jpg
Cover of the pulp magazine The Spider (April 1934, vol. 2, no. 3)
- LIFE 06191944 Eisenhower cover.jpg
LIFE magazine, Time Inc., Official U. S. Army Photo in cover
- TheBeatles68LP.jpg
Album cover for The Beatles' "White Album"
- Mitrohin for Zamiatin's Uezdnoe.jpg
Book cover for Uezdnoe, by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1916
- RealMotherGoose.jpg
Book cover for The Real Mother Goose, 1916, Blanche Fisher Wright, illustrator
- Mister Mystery 01.jpg
Comic book cover for Mister Mystery #1
- Billboard02 10thAnniv.jpg
Cover for (the) Billboard Magazine's tenth anniversary edition, 1904
- Colliers Weekly.jpg
Cover of Collier's Weekly September 1897
See also[edit | edit source]
- Book cover
- History of graphic design
- List of controversial album art
- Computer and video game packaging
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ "Clouds". JoniMitchell.com. Les Irvin. Retrieved 8 June 2014.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Heller, Steven, "Alex Steinweiss, Originator of Artistic Album Covers, Dies at 94," New York Times, July 19, 2011
- ↑ "The Blues: Album Cover Art", Chronicle Books, 1996
- ↑ 1000 Record Covers, Michael Ochs, Taschen Publications, 2005