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Record albums were extremely popular in the 20s and 30s. It was similar to a photo album except you placed your records in there instead of photographs. The design of these albums were very simplistic and often had little or no writing on them. The design of the album didn't matter back then. There was no attention paid to the artist or music.

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Instead of just having a photograph for the album cover the designer has used image manipulation for this design. It is quite an eye catching design as it is extremely colourful and unusual.

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This is a very complex and colourful design. And although this album was released in 1993 it has a very old look about it. This is because the music that is on this album is a compilation of his music from the 70s and 80s so it would've been designed to fit that era.

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This album came out in 1982. The design is very simplistic but eye-catching because of the contrast between the black and white.

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The  Beatles: Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Ban

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The  Beatles: Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Ban

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A lot of album art in 2010 was mainly just a photograph of the artist which was usually a close up image of their face. This is quite a simple design as it simply involves an image and a piece of text which is their name and the name of the album. From the examples above all the text is concording which makes the designs quite uninteresting. To make it more interesting the designer should have used contrasting typefaces for the artists name and the name of the album.

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Miley Cyrus: Can't Be Tamed

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This is an iconic album cover design and it was created by the designer John Kosh. It is the only original UK Beatles album sleeve to show neither the artist name nor the album title on its front cover. There was many criticisms saying that the album wouldn't sell without this information to which Kosh explained "we didn't need to write the band's name on the cover ... They were the most famous band in the world".

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Oasis: (What's the story? Morning Glory?

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Oasis: (What's the story? Morning Glory?

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Here is another album cover that has been vectorised. It was designed by Juilan Opie. Julian Opie is a visual artist, and one of the New British Sculpture movement. He has a unique style.

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Here is another 1980s album cover which is a lot different to the one above. A photo has been used with a black and white effect. This design is simple because there it is desaturated and apart from the yellow text there is no colour so there is some contrast included.

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There was a lot of different styles in the 1980s below is an example that has been vectorised and is quite prismatic.

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A lot of 1970s album art had a sepia tone to it when there was photography used. However, an equal mixture of photographic and hand drawn imagery was used. Below is an example of an album cover using a sepia tone.

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Although 1950s and 1960s album covers were quite similar, 1960s album covers used a lot more graphics within the design. Photography was still an element in the the album covers but they manipulated the images a lot more like below. In the 1950s they simply just included the images on the front without editing them.

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You can see that this photo has been coloured by hand. I imagine that this photograph would've originally been black and white or a very dull colour and the editor has enhanced this photo to make it more interesting to the target market.

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In the 50s a lot more photography was being used rather than hand drawn designs. Bolder colours were used and the cover usually included an image of the band on the front whereas 40s album covers didn't include many images of the band.

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His first cover was for a 1939 collection of songs by Rodgers and Hart which is on the right. It is a theatre sign with the composers' names spelled out in lights. In a lot of his designs he developed a unique signature style that used geometric patterns, folk art symbolism, and a curly hand-drawn lettering which later became copyrighted as the Steinweiss Scrawl.

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Four examples of European 78 RPM record sleeves from the 1930s

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Four examples of European 78 RPM record sleeves from the 1930s

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Here is another of Alex Steinweiss' designs. Again, he has included photography in his design in the top hat.

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Alex Steinweiss' album cover design using photography

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Alex Steinweiss' album cover design using photography

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Some of Alex Steinweiss' album cover art

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Some of Alex Steinweiss' album cover art

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Alex Steinweiss (March 24, 1917 – July 17, 2011) was a graphic designer know for inventing album cover art. During World War II, he became a Columbia Records' advertising manager. After the war, Steinweiss freelanced for Columbia. During a lunch time meeting, they discussed how the paper packaging damaged the microgroove whe n the records were stacked so Steinweiss was asked to develop a new jacket for the records. In 1939, Alex Steinweiss was the first art director for Columbia Records, where he introduced a wider application of album covers and cover art. From 1939 up until 1950 all of his work was hand drawn, but in 1950 he started to introduce photography in his designs.

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On the left is what an album cover looked like in the beginning of the 1920s until the late 1930s. It was very plain with just a brown paper or cardboard sleeve. The producers or retailers name was printed on the sleeve as they were seen as more important than the actual musician back then. Generally the sleeves had a circular cutout allowing the record label to be seen. The design of early album covers was very simple and there were no images included on the front, it was simply just the musician, the name of the album and and the producers or retailers. The paper used was acid paper.